


Lovesick Blues

by Roselightfairy, TAFKAB (orphan_account)



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Accidental unlikely reluctant hero Thranduil, Angst, Bondage, Brosi is the butt monkey, Crack, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fever Dreams, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sisters who are sensible, Soulmates, Whump, mild AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:03:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16186841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TAFKAB
Summary: Dwarves do not always know when they have found their one mate—so if they separate without realizing it, their bodies have a quick-acting and unpleasant way of alerting them: theamral barzûlegûr, or lovesickness. No one knows what effect such an illness might have on another race—in all the known history of dwarves, such a thing has never happened before.  Until now.When Legolas and Gimli each fall inexplicably ill after parting to return to their homes, their families must find out what’s wrong—and must reunite them before it’s too late.





	Lovesick Blues

**Author's Note:**

> This story is, frankly, not what we intended to write. We meant to write your standard soul mate AU, but then we found a Tumblr post about unusual soul mate AU alternatives, found here: http://bluandorange.tumblr.com/post/174313523665/you-know-what-soulmate-aus-need-more-shitty and it steered us down the road toward... the bizarre thing this story became. Whether it be things you never thought you'd see Thranduil do or Legolas having a cozy nuclear family or the unexpected POV switches (yes they're deliberate)... well, we hope you'll enjoy the ride! ^_^

Legolas sniffled and wiped absently at his nose, vaguely annoyed with the tickling sensation in his throat. There must be smoke in the air; perhaps the men of Laketown were burning some unpleasant thing or other. Sometimes the smoke of their fires reached to his father’s palace if the wind was in the wrong quarter; however, it was odd that he would smell them so far underground.

It was of little consequence, so he ignored the sensation and kept about his business. There were many old friends and family members to greet. Tonight his father and mother planned to feast the kingdom in celebration of his return from the Quest of the Ring; the kitchens were already abuzz with preparations, and a vast table had been laid ready for feasting under the trees and twinkling stars.

Sauron had been defeated, and he had lent his hand to the deeds surrounding it; he would raise his goblet to honor the ringbearers and toast all his friends-- not least of them Gimli son of Glóin, who had parted from him at the edge of the wood only the day before, heading north and east toward Erebor.

He found that already he missed his companion more even than he had anticipated. Gimli had grown dear to him indeed over the weeks of their journey, and that fondness had only strengthened over their months in Minas Tirith awaiting Aragorn and Arwen’s wedding. He had not looked to their parting with pleasure-- nor had he expected the strange unease that had lingered with him since they had said their farewells.

This, too, he did his best to shake out of his head-- Gimli could take care of himself, after all, and he would soon be safe among his kin. Surely he would laugh if Legolas voiced such concerns to him. But all the same…

He turned his attention to the clothing laid out on his bed instead of the uneasy thoughts in his mind. Given the choice, he would have simply worn his everyday clothing, but someone-- his mother, most likely-- had laid out the formal clothing he wore only when he could not avoid it, and the circlet that he must have tried to lose hundreds of times over the years, only to have it always found or mended. He tried to muster up some irritation at its presence now, but found he could not. It had been many months and many perils since he had seen his family, after all-- surely he could allow his mother some consideration. And he found himself strangely lacking in the energy to care.

“My son.” As though summoned by his thought, Ellothien breezed into his room, opening the window to allow floods of sunlight to wash in. Only then did he realize it was rather musty inside; the place had not been opened since he departed. “It is a pleasure to have you back with us again. I would love to hear the tales of your travels from your own lips; it has been passed from ear to ear that you have done great deeds-- that it was your bowshot that slew the mount of the Lord of the Nazgûl when he menaced the ringbearer over the Emyn Muil, and that you fought against _mûmakil_ upon the fields of the Pelennor.”

Legolas smiled on her, feeling weary. His journey had been an arduous one, it was true. “These tales are truth,” he said. “And I slew many uruk-hai at Helm’s Deep, though my comrade passed my count by one there. I will tell you of him and of all those with whom I traveled.” He must teach them to know Gimli and to admire his deeds before he might bring the dwarf here; he would have Gimli be met with honor rather than suspicion and mistrust.

“We have not seen the uruk-hai here, only mountain goblins and Mordor orcs. And many spiders.” She made a face; she particularly disliked the evil insects that had long plagued the forest and made it unsafe for her to wander there untrammeled.

“I saw many goblins and orcs, as well as trolls and worse things among the forces of Mordor.” He paused, thinking of Frodo and Samwise. “And the ringbearers fought a child of Ungoliant who made the spiders of our forest look small and petty, but they prevailed. I would tell you of them, as well, for we have not seen a halfling here since Bilbo Baggins passed through on his way west after the Battle of Five Armies. They are more admirable than we had thought-- small, but valiant.”

She smiled on him, moving about the room and opening more windows so that a breeze came through to freshen the drapings. “I have had your bedding changed and made ready for you; I doubt not that you are weary after your long journey and many battles.” Her eyes twinkled. “It is said you arrived at the border of the wood with a dwarf, and that the two of you shared many words before he departed upon the road to Erebor. Is it true, then, that the kin of Durin were among the Fellowship?”

“Only the one,” he said, “but if all his kin are as valiant and stouthearted as he, then I could only wish there had been more. He--” He stopped suddenly, the words stuck in his throat: that strange distress at being apart mingled with the urgent desire to describe Gimli in the right words: the words that would paint him for Ellothien in all his virtue, all his greatness, and goodness--

“He was a worthy companion indeed,” was all he could say in the end, his voice strangely hoarse. “And became a dear friend, by the end of our time together. Indeed, the words we exchanged were many, for he goes now to his kin and I know not when we shall be united again.” He shifted, wanting to smile at his next words, but unable to muster it. “He would laugh to hear me worry, but I hope his road has been untroubled and that he finds no threat on his return to his kin-- save perhaps overenthusiastic embraces!” He did smile then, remembering Gimli’s greetings to their hobbit friends after long and perilous journeys. He could only imagine that Gimli’s own welcome among his kin would be equally… bracing.

His mother studied him for long moments with eyes so sharp that he fidgeted under her regard, until at last she broke into a smile of her own. “For your sake, then, and for his, I hope the same,” she said. “Though if he is all that you pronounce him to be, I cannot imagine any amount of danger could give him cause for dismay.”

“No,” said Legolas, though his mind felt strangely distant from his mouth, “no, I suppose not.” He shivered then, though he knew not why, and rubbed absently at his arms.

Ellothien laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he almost flinched before looking up at her. “I can see that you are tired, Legolas,” she said. “And we have much planned for this evening, so I will leave you to rest awhile before you must rouse yourself for the revels!” She smiled upon him. “And look, I have ensured that all your clothing is prepared, to spare you any trouble in deciding what to wear.” Again those sharp, knowing eyes. “It would be best if none of it met with any unfortunate accidents in the hours between now and this evening.”

Legolas laughed. “And here I had thought to see if I might have this circlet trampled by father’s elk, that I might not have to wear it!” He held up the metal adornment, which dangled innocently from his fingers. “As you know well, it is heavy, and it pinches me.” Perhaps Gimli might be commissioned to make him a new one, that he would have excuse to leave this one behind and replace it with another when he went forth to Ithilien, as indeed Aragorn had indicated he might.

“It belonged to your grandfather,” she admonished. “Oropher had it of his grandmother, who remained in Doriath when Oropher came to the Greenwood.”

His grandfather’s grandmother, who perished later in the fall of Gondolin, Legolas knew. He nodded meekly rather than hear the entire history recited once more.

“Perhaps when you gift your father and myself with a grandchild, you will finally find the excuse you seek to escape it, and may put it upon your own child’s brow as the heirloom it is,” she teased him gently. “Have you met any comely elves in your travels? In Rivendell, or perhaps in Lothlórien?”

Legolas frowned of a sudden; he had not thought of siring children, and the idea set a shadow over his heart. Of course, he might yet do so, but….

“Truly that would be cruel,” he said lightly. “I would be a poor father indeed to hand down an heirloom three of our family have already proven so eager to be rid of!” His mother knew well that most elves who wed did so within the first hundred years of life; Legolas was well beyond that now, and yet she hoped. He sighed, wondering what he might tell her.

“You are oppressed,” she said softly. “I did not expect you to return to us with a wife, Legolas, do not be troubled.” She pressed a kiss on his brow. “Rest now, and join us at dusk for the feasting.”

He managed a weak smile in her direction, which faded when she left the room.

Why was he so out of sorts this day? He was weary from his journey, certainly, but this seemed something different. This lingering upset could not be explained by anything but--

Surely it could not be a premonition? Nothing could truly have befallen Gimli on his way home to Erebor, or…? They had parted at the outside edge of the forest, outside of the reach of the spiders and other fell creatures that lurked in its depths. And the road to Erebor was safe, now; they had had word that they should not need to take extra care in their travels, that most of the danger had passed with Sauron--

And still he worried, and he knew not why.

A prickling chill ran up his spine and down his arms, and he shivered again and drew back the bedcovers to slip beneath them. Perhaps his mother was right and a rest now before the celebrations would be what he needed.

But to his surprise, as he lay in his bed, it was long moments before the strange chill was dispelled. And it was longer still before he could calm his thoughts enough to relax into rest.

His reverie was foggy and troubled, and for what might have been the first time in his life, he did not remember his dreams when he woke that evening.

***

Legolas lay in his bed, gazing out at the slanting rays of the sun sinking between the trees, his mind curiously blank. Though he intended to get up, it did not truly occur to him to move until the last rays vanished and a horn call went up, signaling the start of the feast.

That stirred him; he rose and robed himself lazily, placing the uncomfortable circlet atop his head. He wondered what Gimli was doing-- had he reached home yet? He had said when they parted that he hoped to reach Erebor that day or the next, but if he had been slowed in his journey he might have lodged for the night in Laketown, or perhaps Dale. He would be taking his evening meal: meat and ale, perhaps with bread and cheese. Legolas missed the scent of his pipe smoke, though he teased Gimli about the smell and insisted on sitting upwind when he smoked it.

He found himself yearning to be with Gimli, the two of them safely anonymous in some ill-lit tavern, bent over a rickety table eating bread and cheese as he jested with his friend. He wondered if Gimli’s mother, too, urged him to provide her with grandchildren. Likely she did-- and likely also, Gimli was returning to Erebor to be reunited not just with his family, but with his old friends, including whatever sweetheart he may have had before he departed upon the quest.

That was a less pleasant thought, for some reason, so he did not dwell upon it. Instead he yawned widely, shaking his head to clear it, and went down, letting his fingertips trail against the smooth railing that guided him down the stairs and into the cavern, from which he might go out into the wood.

“Legolas!” A voice intruded on his consciousness and he turned, blinking, to behold his young sister, Lachwend.

“I have called you thrice,” she chided. “Has your time among mortals injured your ears?” She put up her hand to tug at his earlobe, and he batted her away.

“It has not, but I have learned to ignore those whose words have no substance,” he teased her, and she scowled upon him.

“You have learned no courtesy among mortals, that is certain!” She fell in at his side, jabbing a cordial elbow at his ribs. “It is as father feared; you have lost all sense of decorum.”

“Better that than never having developed any,” he told her. He thought she would like Gimli; the two of them might whet their tongues upon one another and then laugh and enjoy wine afterward.

She made a face at him, but did not deny it. “You are late,” she informed him instead. “I was to wait for you here, but I was not warned that you had become such a sluggard that I would be waiting until after the sun had already gone to bed, when we ought still to be wakeful and making merry!”

“We ought indeed,” said Legolas vaguely, losing already the thread of the conversation. His mind felt strangely fuzzy, not clear enough even to bandy words with a sister less than half his age.

She poked his shoulder, frowning now when he was too slow to swat her away. “You seem different tonight,” she said, her eyes suddenly flashing in the same way their mother’s had: sharp, observant. “Are you well?”

“Hmm? Of course I am,” said Legolas, pulling his thoughts together with a massive effort. “I am merely weary from my long journey, and I miss my dear companions.” Another brief shiver took him then, and his mind went again to Gimli. Surely he had either arrived home, or had found lodging elsewhere by now; surely he would not be walking late into the night to reach Erebor? Night, after all, was when the remaining foes were most likely to roam--

“Your companions?” Lachwend said, reclaiming his attention. “I have heard that one of them was a dwarf. It is whispered by half the kingdom by now, but Mother says that you told her it is true.” Her voice lowered to a loud whisper, and she smiled impishly. “Father was not pleased to hear it, and he looked as though he would have had hard words to say, but she merely looked at him-- you know the way she looks.” Legolas nodded absently, but at this point, his attention was little required. “And he went silent, and she patted him on the shoulder as though he were one of us.” She quieted, and Legolas wondered for a moment of worry if some answer would be required from him-- but she turned to face him, stopping their progress for a moment. “Is it true?” she asked, her whisper quiet this time. “Did you become friends with a dwarf?”

“You widen your eyes and drop your voice as though that were a great scandal,” he told her, and this time the disapproval in his voice was real. “Gimli, son of Glóin, was a great hero and a valued member of our company. He helped to lead us safely through Moria and bested my tally in combat at Helm’s Deep. He fought upon the Pelennor and emerged unscratched, and when we stood before the Black Gate together, he said that he had not thought to die in company with an elf-- and together he and I vowed we should die as friends. That vow we will fulfil, though gladly it was not to be that day.”

He eyed her sternly. “The Lady Galadriel of Lothlórien received him in her land, and honored him there-- she gave him three hairs from her head, thrice the boon she denied to Fëanor long ago. Speak not ill of Gimli.”

She raised an elegant brow. “Mother said you were quick to defend the dwarf’s honor, but I had to see it to believe.” Her expression spoke of triumph, some guess confirmed, and Legolas bristled that he had been so easily entrapped.

“I would correct anyone who spoke ill of any member of our Fellowship,” he said, trying not to sound angry. “We journeyed long together, and in terrible peril. We all grew to be great friends.”

“That I do not doubt,” she said as they emerged into the wood, twinkling lanterns lighting their path to the feasting. Woodland beasts browsed idly at the fringes of the path as they passed, unfearing; Legolas spied his father’s beloved white deer, their slim legs flashing as they waded a stream. “I would learn more of them all, and of the great deeds you did-- and of the king of Gondor. It is said he wed the daughter of Elrond, who is the image of Lúthien reborn among elfkind. Is it so? Did you meet her?”

“I never saw the nightingale, so I cannot judge,” Legolas said. “But Queen Arwen is lovely surpassing the daughters of men.” He laughed suddenly, remembering. “Gimli would say the lady of Lórien is more lovely than she, and would be stern with you if you did not agree.”

Her face softened even as her eyes danced. “The dwarf comes often to your tongue,” she observed. “Every topic returns to him. If I knew no better, I would think you besotted.”

“Lachwend!” Legolas snapped, his faculties at last returned in full-- perhaps a bit too late. “There is no call for such-- you ought not-- we were shieldbrothers!” he burst out at last. “If such a friendship is not enough for you to understand and accept--”

“You need not be so quick to draw, Legolas. I merely suggest.” She tossed her head, dark hair flying. “Of course you are not-- such a thought would be absurd. An elf and a dwarf? You, with one so short and so hairy? Indeed, you would have to bend down for any sort of embrace, and surely his beard would be dreadfully in the way.”

Legolas opened his mouth furiously, and then clamped it shut again when she grinned at him. But the damage had been done. “Well,” she said, “I promise you this-- I will not breathe a word to _ada_.”

“Lachwend,” Legolas growled again. “Enough! You speculate about a friendship you cannot think to understand, and I would thank you to keep your tongue still when it comes to idle speculation upon matters of the heart involving others, no matter whom you speak of!”

And it was, of course, at that very moment that they entered the feasting glade.

Half the elves of Eryn Lasgalen looked up with expressions of mild surprise at the unexpected words, and a hush fell that drew even the attention of Thranduil, who sat in state at the high table with Ellothien by his side, presiding over the serving of wine.

“You will not have to speak, I see, for you have tricked me into arousing father’s curiosity myself,” Legolas hissed to her rather more quietly as they skirted the gathering, moving with grace across the leaf-strewn ground. He was glad that he would not be seated opposite her; she would sit by his mother and he by his father, so there would be two places between them.

The prospect of making conversation with Thranduil would not normally have been one he looked forward to, but tonight it seemed a better option than his sister’s company.

“Father,” Legolas bent his head, and Thranduil responded in kind.

“Legolas, my son, welcome home. You have honored your people with your heroism, and tonight we celebrate the success of your quest and the victories you helped to bring.” He slid an austere gaze over the gathering, and raised his goblet to his lips-- the signal that all might begin.

Musicians struck up a song and the quiet murmur of conversation arose between all the assembled elves. Legolas was glad to have fresh fruit and vegetables with new bread and honey, but the food did little to restore him. In fact, he grew even wearier as he ate, until his eyelids were drooping as he lifted his cup to his lips, sipping clear water instead of potent wine, which he had found burned unpleasantly in his throat tonight. Lachwend was going to be a problem; she knew him too well and had already penetrated nearly to the core of his secret, even if it was done merely in jest and she did not yet realize the truth in her words.

Legolas himself had not thought so deeply on his affection for Gimli-- not until this night, when he was forced to realize Lachwend’s words had struck straight at his heart. Gimli was dear to him-- more dear than he should be. So dear Legolas was ready to fight his own kin to defend his friend’s honor! It would bear thought. Perhaps his partiality to Gimli would recede as time passed and distance grew between them.

The thought sent a pang through his heart, and he set his goblet on the table lest he spill its contents in his discomposure.

He became aware, then, of Thranduil watching him keenly. “My son, you seem fatigued. I would have done better to delay this gathering until you had spent time in reverie.” A fine line formed between his brows as he regarded Legolas.

“I am fine,” Legolas protested, forcing his spine straight. “I look forward to the dancing.” It was true; he loved to dance upon the grass beneath the stars, and had not indulged in it for many months. He would shake this disquiet from him when the music swept him away; all he needed was to remember his place and forget the evils he had seen. Then his spirit would be refreshed.

“Then I will call for music,” Thranduil said, and did so.

The music changed at his command, the musicians taking up a lively, merry tune-- one befitting the celebratory tone of the night. Legolas could even feel it, his weariness slightly lessened at the reminder that the war was over, Sauron defeated, and he was returned home. And he had missed the dancing here among his kin-- the dances of men, and even of the Rivendell elves, were not the same.

He made to rise, and in a flash, Lachwend was beside him, one hand extended to him and her eyebrows raised in question.

He fixed her with a dark look, and did not take her hand.

“Oh, come, Legolas,” she pleaded. “Do not be angry with me. I did not mean to vex you, truly, and I have anxiously awaited your arrival so we might partner once more for the dancing!” She blinked a few times, her eyes wide and innocent, her face set in a hopeful smile.

Cursing his own soft heart, Legolas sighed and took her hand. “Very well,” he said. “But only because it has been many months since I have seen you. Do not expect such easy forgiveness in the future!”

“Of course not.” She beamed at him and tugged on his hand, leading him out into the clearing set aside for dancing. A few dancers had begun to gather, swaying along with the first notes of the music in preparation, but they retreated to the edges of the clearing at the arrival of the prince and princess and made space for them at the center.

“Now,” said Lachwend, tugging Legolas into position, “we shall see whether or not your reflexes have suffered after so long away.”

“Suffered?” he protested, even as he raised a hand to spin her behind his back. It was a bit more difficult to talk and dance at the same time than it should have been, he granted, but that was merely due to his weariness. “I shall refer you to any member of our Fellowship and any of the lords of men we met along the way, and I would wager my place as heir that none of them would tell you my reflexes have suffered!”

“That wager I will certainly not take,” she said, letting him reel her back in over his arm and duck her almost to the ground, “for your place as heir is something I envy you not at all, whatever your erstwhile companions may have to say of you and your… particular skills.” She winked.

Legolas sighed. It was no use trying to stop her from teasing him; she would do as she wished, whatever he might have to say about it. So long as she only jested, anyway, he could keep his confusion and concern to himself, for examination later, and he might never let on that her words had struck him deeper than her intent.

He fell into silence after that; it was all he could do, he found, to concentrate on the dancing. For all her needling, it was true that Lachwend had always been his favored partner-- as quick in step as she was in wit, she could always match him, and constantly surprised him with new ideas and sudden bursts of energy. But perhaps she had been right after all that his reflexes had suffered, for his body felt always a step slower than the music, less quick to keep up than it had ever been in the past. And to his surprise, as the song began to wind to the end and some of the instruments fell away, he heard himself panting, and realized that his throat felt scraped raw with his own breath.

Lachwend too had said little, though at times he caught her glancing at him, a motion of head and eyes as quick and light as a bird’s wingbeat that made him uneasy, though he knew not exactly why.

As the song wound to a close, she twisted free of his grip and crouched, preparing for the quick, leaping step that would end the dance, and he raised his arms, ready to grasp her waist and send her flying over his head, and then--

He could not explain exactly what happened. He stumbled, or faltered, or she did-- but the pressure of his hands around her waist was not the springboard it was meant to be, but rather a simple collision, two objects clashing in midair and bouncing off of one another; instead of a supporting lift, it was all he could do to catch her instead, and turn the fumbled leap into an improvised dip, rather than sending them both sprawling.

The watchers would not have noticed more than a slight clumsiness, but Lachwend knew that something had gone wrong, and as soon as the song had ended and they had accepted the polite applause of the watchers, she hauled him to the edge of the clearing, waving to the other revelers that they might now take their own turn at dancing.

“Legolas,” she said, once the others seemed sufficiently distracted. “Are you _sure_ you are quite well?”

“I am fine,” he said by reflex, but in truth, he had grown a little concerned. “It is merely that the orcs and trolls of Mordor are so slow and dull in comparison to my own people; I have become lazy while fighting them. I suppose it is well you did not take my wager; it seems my reflexes have suffered indeed.” He bowed to her and squired her out of the dance nonetheless, forcing himself to breathe normally.

Perhaps this was a symptom of the sea longing? That was the only malady Legolas had ever felt upon his soul. It might be part of the urge to leave Middle Earth and seek Valinor, and he wondered if it might increase in time until his every day west of the sea was a weariness to him-- as he had been told it was to ageing mortals.

“Legolas!” A group of warriors called to him. “We wish to test our bows against a bow of the Galadhrim. Come and shoot with us!”

“Duty calls,” he winked at her and slipped away to join them.

He acquitted himself well enough-- the great bow was stronger than the smaller bows of Greenwood, and his eye was still accurate-- but before long the muscle in his arm began to burn, and after a time he excused himself, fearing the muscles would cramp. He unstrung the bow and went in to tuck it away, slipping quietly through corridors deserted by all but only a handful of sentries-- all others were at the feasting.

He would just go lie down for a little while, and then arise and join them once more after he had rested.

Once back in his bed, however, he found himself wondering if he would have the strength to rise again at all before the morning. Perhaps he had simply not rested enough prior to the celebrations; it had been a long, hard-- well, a long journey, anyway, after several even longer months away from home. He would make his apologies in the morning, and would simply plead as excuse this bone-deep weariness.

As he lay, waiting for reverie to find him, his thoughts turned again to Gimli, and to Lachwend’s words. _If I knew no better, I would think you besotted._

Was he? It was not something he had thought to consider before, but-- but this strange emptiness he had felt since their parting, which could only be filled when he spoke of Gimli, either praising his virtues or remembering their companionship or defending his honor; the fierce anger that had risen in him at the thought of any insult or threat to his friend--

He knew not. But he did spare another moment to wonder where Gimli was now, and whether he had made it home safely, and another shiver tore through him at the question, so intense that he pulled the bedcovers tighter around him, though he had never needed their warmth before.

The more his thoughts strayed, for no reason that he could truly understand, the more certain he grew that something was truly wrong. And such instincts, he had learned after long years of defending his father’s realm in battle, ought not to be doubted. He was clearly in need of rest now, and perhaps that was merely leading him to see spiders where there were only shadows. But tomorrow morning, once he had recovered his strength, he resolved that he would ride for the edge of the forest-- and all the way to Erebor, if he had to-- to ensure that Gimli’s road home had been safe and that no evil fate had befallen him, so soon after their parting.

And he would have done so indeed, had he been able to rise from his bed at all when the morning came.

***

Erebor loomed darkly in the sky as Gimli arrived on the shore by Laketown. Shadows had begun to stretch eastward, marking the arrival of late afternoon. The chill air was heavy with mist, and he coughed into his hand, leaning against a piling at the barge dock. He had thought to be here by midafternoon, but soon after he left Legolas, weariness took him, making his steps slow. It felt as if they very forest had dragged at his heels, lifting roots to trip him and setting obstacles in his path that forced him into arduous detours.

Now that he was here, he felt little better. Paying a bargeman extra coin, Gimli arranged to be set ashore beyond the town, where he might take the path to Dale. Dale would be a stiff climb, and at the rate he was moving, he would not arrive there before dusk.

Perhaps he should stay in Laketown instead-- but he could feel himself sickening for a cold, and did not want to be stranded there. If he could keep moving, he would be home before the worst of the illness set in, and he could weather it in his own bed, eating his mother’s stew and being fussed over by his sister and her brood of dwarrowlings.

The bargeman listened to him cough and made a sign against the evil eye; the man stayed at the far end of the boat, beyond the barrels and barrels of fish and foodstuffs he carried. Gimli obliged him, not wanting to infect anyone. By good fortune, Legolas was almost surely immune. He supposed he should try to discourage his mother and father from tending him in his sickroom; it would not do to expose his elders to some unknown ailment. But his sister and her husband were young and strong, and they would help him without much danger to themselves.

“Where have you traveled?” The bargeman gave him a wary look.

“From west of the Misty Mountains through Moria and into the land of the Elves that is called Lothlórien, then through Rohan to Gondor, and then to the Black Gate itself; I have turned homeward from the king’s coronation and come through Rohan once more to the forest of Fangorn and the outskirts of the Greenwood.” Gimli was proud of his recitation, but the bargeman quailed; he edged closer to the end of the barge, as far as he could go and keep his hand upon the tiller.

Gimli stifled another cough and wished for a warm scarf to wrap his throat, but doubtless it was too late for that; the nights had been chill and his blankets light, but he had not dared ask the elf to curl close with him for warmth. He would pay the price for his shyness now, but he was strong, and rarely had illness oppressed him for more than a few days.

He was forced to leap ashore when they made landfall, for the bargeman would not bring the gangplank near him. And so it was with wet boots that Gimli slogged toward Dale, and a sneeze added itself to his cough before he was midway to the town wall. Nevertheless, he struggled onward, for if he stopped now, he had no food and there was nothing here in the desolation that he might burn.

He was not so proud that he denied himself a sigh of relief when the first signs of the town came into view. He had hoped to make it to the mountain tonight, to collapse into his own bed and allow his family to fuss over him a bit, but his legs were beginning to ache and the chill of night was setting in in full, and the thought of pushing on through the growing darkness did not appeal.

There were inns in Dale; surely they would have space for a dwarf of Erebor, particularly one returned after such labors as he had undertaken! Gimli only regretted that he was not in top form; in the past he had enjoyed many a pleasant evening in the common room of an inn, drinking ale and boasting of his battles and journeys with the men there. Tonight, he would have been sure to have the most impressive stories. But all he could dream of now was a hot drink and a warm bed-- or even just the bed.

Sniffling miserably and rubbing a gloved hand under his nose, he trudged on. To divert himself from his misery, he thought of the elf. When they had parted, the sun had been rising in the east, catching its light in the elf’s shining hair and lighting him with a warm glow. Gimli had drunk of the sight eagerly, the better to fortify himself for the time he must spend away from his friend-- likely they would not see one another again until they returned south, or perhaps not even then. The thought oppressed him, so he returned to contemplating Legolas lit by morning sunlight, laughing, beautiful and warm and _there_.

The last few furlongs to Dale seemed to stretch as long as the entire journey before, but at last he was dragging himself through the streets in search of lodging. Another night he might have been choosy, but tonight he knocked at the door of the first inn he saw, straightening his shoulders as best he could and clearing his throat as he waited to be allowed entry. He had no need for another incident like the one with the bargeman this evening.

The innkeeper seemed pleasant enough, if a bit tired-- and Gimli supposed it was rather late. He gave the innkeeper an apologetic glance, but spoke as little as possible in greeting, hoping to keep the rasp in his voice as inconspicuous as he might, and to his great relief, there were rooms free.

“The common room is still open, if you care to join some of the men for drink tonight,” offered the innkeeper. “Surely a traveler such as yourself has many an exciting tale to tell.” He looked Gimli up and down, clearly taking in his bedraggled appearance and still-squelching boots.

Gimli merely shrugged-- he was no elf, to appear so untouched by long travel and the elements. Indeed, he found himself envying Legolas’s fortitude now-- and missing his company. Doubtless he would have been more irritating than helpful, prancing about without a hint of misery from the cold-- either cold: the biting chill in the air or the congestion in Gimli’s nose and throat. But he would have been a distraction from the discomfort, and surely he would have been sympathetic. Indeed, he would likely have fussed as much as Gimli’s own family would when they saw him tomorrow, and Gimli would have feigned irritation at the elf’s worry even as he gloried in his friend’s care--

He sighed. “I thank you for the offer,” he said, wincing as his voice grated against his throat. “I will keep it in mind, but I have journeyed far today and seek now only a place to rest my weary body. I return to Erebor tomorrow after many months away.”

The innkeeper nodded, seeming unsurprised. “Very well-- here is the key to your room. Have a pleasant rest.”

Gimli thanked him and trudged the last few steps to his room, where at last he lowered his pack to the floor and sat down on the bed.

The mattress beneath him was hard and lumpy, and the bedding none too clean and worn threadbare beneath a single scratchy blanket, but there was a fire in the hearth and the room was warm. After months of sleeping rough on the ground only briefly interrupted by good lodgings in Rohan and later in Gondor, it felt like the best bed Gimli had ever occupied. He sighed, kicking off his boots, and with the last of his energy, he managed to drag his hauberk over his head. It slid to the floor with a thump, and he stared down at it, resolving to pick it up and put it away properly, but instead he sat there for another minute before succumbing to the allure of the bed and stretching out with his head on the pillow.

The inn was not quiet, but he hardly noticed the shouting and song from the common room, or the enthusiastic sounds of coupling from a nearby room; his eyelids slid shut and he knew no more.

*****

Someone was poking Gimli’s shoulder. “Peace, elf,” he growled. “I will waken in my own time!”

“I am no elf.” The voice was saucy, distinctly more high-pitched even than young Peregrin Took’s; his sluggish brain eventually identified it as a female one. He forced open one crusted eyelid and stared resentfully up into the glare of light that surrounded a silhouetted face peering down at him.

“I have to clean this room. Or do you mean to occupy it for another night?” It was a chambermaid; she bore a broom and dustpan in her hands. Behind her on the hearth the fire had burned to ash. Gimli’s nose was cold, and his eyes watered; before he could stop himself, his chest heaved in a cough.

That sent her dancing back on her heels. “Anyway, you can’t; the room is already sold,” she said swiftly, and lifted her apron in front of her face. “Take your things and go.” She kicked something across the floor-- a metal scrape. His armor, he realized; he had never tidied it away.

Miserably, shivering in the cold air, Gimli dragged himself up. His joints ached and his head began to thump with pain as soon as he lifted it from the pillow. He could hardly force himself to bend far enough to pick up his mail shirt, and he wished that the chambermaid would leave so that he could indulge the desperate need to blow his nose-- it had become so congested in the night that he could hardly breathe.

But she did not, so under her watchful eye he gathered his things together, gritting his teeth behind every motion and breathing shallowly through his mouth, and then forced himself up and out of the room on unsteady legs.

The journey from Dale to Erebor was short, but now he found himself wishing he had simply made it last night. He felt even worse today, the early-autumn sunlight stabbing at his skull behind his eyes, his nose streaming, his whole body aching. He would have gladly spent all day in that hard bed, and even the thought of his own considerably more comfortable one at home was hardly enough to keep him stumbling on.

He would have given much, he thought again, to have Legolas at his side now. Long gone were the days when he had determined not to show weakness before the elf; he remembered what a comfort Legolas had been to him during the days and nights they had ridden with the Dead, and while this was a different kind of discomfort entirely, he could not help wishing for Legolas’s company and care. He would have insisted they stop to rest, and would have perhaps made a fire and found herbs for tea, and then perhaps he would have laid his slender hand on Gimli’s forehead to check for fever--

Gimli stopped for a moment, leaning on the handle of his axe and panting for breath. Now he was letting his imagination run away with him. Likely Legolas would have done no such thing and Gimli was simply indulging his own fantasies too far in the wild desire for some sort of comfort.

He coughed again and winced, putting a hand to his chest for a moment before pressing on once more. The mountain was still in sight, and drawing nearer-- before long he would be home, and he would no longer have to sustain himself solely with dreams about someone he would not see again for months at least, if not years.

It would be good to see his family again. That thought did put a spark of excitement into his faltering body, and he even managed a faint smile. He had bidden farewell to his mother and sister and her family without knowing it would be so long before seeing them again; doubtless his father had heard sharp words when he had returned alone. And his bed awaited, and the roaring fires of Erebor, and surely hot mulled ale could be found somewhere.

Those thoughts sustained him for the many tiresome furlongs he still had to climb before eventually, finally, he had made it to the gates of Erebor.

Not much had changed there since his departure; the great gates stood firm, occupied by sentries who called down to him from the battlement above as he drew near, standing between the lake and the gate.

“Who goes there?”

“Gimli son of Glóin, cousin to the king under the mountain!”

“Tell us the path to the forward armory, then!”

Gimli answered that and other questions in Khuzdul, glad to feel the language of his birth upon his tongue again. Both it and the correct answers proved him worthy, and one half of the gate swung outward to admit him. Gimli watched it move in absolute silence, pride swelling in his aching chest; the dwarves had counterweighted the gates so cleverly with hydraulics and stones that no sally port was required.

He stepped inside and sagged with relief as the gate swung silently shut behind him, the counterweights sinking as water was pumped from its chambers. He heard the cry go up announcing his return, and very nearly leaned against the wall, anticipating the arrival of his kin, who would accompany him home.

His brother-in-law, Brosi, was the first to arrive, wearing the uniform of a guard; he had been on duty, Gimli realized, and had even possibly been one of those interrogating him. He felt a hint of shame for not recognizing him, but perhaps he could be forgiven given his mental state.

“Gimli!” said Brosi, hurrying towards him. “Welcome home, _agnâtnadad_!” He reached to clasp Gimli’s arm in greeting, and Gimli responded in kind, pushing energy into his flagging spirit for a smile. “We have looked long for your return; I am sure your parents and your sister will not be long in coming.”

“It will be good to see them, as it is you,” Gimli said, “though perhaps my parents ought to keep their distance.”

Brosi gave him a questioning look, but Gimli had no chance to explain in the roar of energy that he could hear building from behind a corner, which soon swept out to engulf him. His sister was there indeed, in the wake of her two young children, who hurtled down the hall like arrows; his parents, for all their age, were not far behind her. Gimli looked at the wave of enthusiasm rushing toward him, and it threatened to knock him off his feet; he swayed where he stood.

“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand before Geira’s children could throw themselves at him. “I think it would be best if you stayed back.”

“Why should I not embrace my son?” asked his father, confusion and hurt appearing on his face. “You have been away for long, and we have missed you sorely. Are you wounded in some way?”

Gimli’s body answered for him. He coughed, a deep, wracking cough that tore from his chest and left him doubled over, gasping for breath, one hand on the wall. When it finally subsided, he straightened as best he could, but his ears roared, his head so heavy it threatened to overbalance him and drag him down.

He forced his eyes to focus and took in his family again, their smiles of welcome unanimously morphed into concern. “Gimli!” said his mother in alarm, taking a few steps toward him. “You are ill! Were you traveling like this?”

He nodded, keeping a hand up to hold her at a distance. “Only in the last day or so,” he croaked, then made a face and sniffled. “Doubtless it is no reason for concern, just a cold, but I would not inflict it on any of you-- particularly not you two or the children.” He inclined his head to his parents, and then to Geira.

“No.” Brosi’s face had turned serious, and he had moved forward a few steps to stand between Gimli and the rest of his family. “Gimli, I do not like to ask this, but-- you have come from Mordor, yes?”

Gimli blinked. “Not directly,” he said. Slowly, the meaning of Brosi’s question began to dawn on him. “I tarried in Gondor for some months after our battle at the Black Gate, surely enough time to drive away anything so serious as that!”

“Or allow it to lie dormant.” Brosi looked at him, apologetic. “I do not doubt your word, Gimli, but it is a new precaution within the mountain; after the heavy losses we sustained in the battles here, our new king is loath to let pass without suspicion anything that may hold some remnant of the foul works of Sauron.”

“So…?” Gimli’s head was still foggy; he did not understand what might be done. Surely they would not turn him out of the mountain? “Brosi, I assure you, this is nothing serious--”

“It may be you are right, but I am obliged to quarantine you all the same. Back, everyone!” Brosi held out a quelling hand. “We will take you to one of the guard rooms, and kindle fire there to drive away the foul miasma of your illness.”

“I do not stink,” Gimli protested-- surely if he did, Legolas would have commented on it with disfavor.

“You do,” Geira informed him tartly. “Mother, make him some of your best stew with lots of broth. I will bring it to Brosi that Gimli may be fed. He will be warmed by the fire, and we can bring blankets or other comforts that he can enjoy until he is well.”

“And if you are masked, you can attend him-- but only if the healers approve,” Brosi said.

Tordís harumphed with disapproval. “He is my son!”

“Fetch a mask and perhaps then you may tend him,” Brosi insisted.

“Gimli, your boots are wet; I can see the waterstain on the leather. Take them off and warm your feet. We will fetch dry socks and blankets and pillows. You will have clean clothes-- and a bath, when you are well enough,” Tordís commanded. “And I will cook your favorites for you.”

“He will not be able to taste them, with that stuffed nose,” Geira commented, frowning. “Soup at first.”

“Very well, soup. What are we all waiting for?” Tordís stamped away, harrying the young ones with orders until she faded from hearing.

“Welcome home, Gimli!” Brosi put a kind hand on his shoulder. “The room is the old guardhouse, and it should be comfortable enough. I will start the fire.”

Gimli let himself be chivvied into the old guardroom, wary of the magnetic properties of the narrow bed that waited there near a hearth well-heaped with coal. Brosi knelt to light the fire while Gimli struggled out of his armor, arranging it wearily on a stand; his chest felt as if iron bands drew tight about its girth. He kicked his boots in the direction of the hearth before succumbing to the lure of the bed-- it was much nicer than the one at the inn, but the effect of sitting down upon it was the same. He could feel his eyelids sliding down with all the inevitable force of an avalanche, and was asleep before his head hit the pillow, never knowing that Brosi came and heaved his legs up on the mattress, then covered him with blankets before departing.

***

He was in a forest.

It was not Fangorn, but the trees were alive, dark and twisting when he tried to peer through them to see a clear path. The wind, he tried to convince himself, but when he stopped moving, the air stood just as still around him. There was no motion anywhere, not even in the trees; they went entirely immobile around and behind him-- but he could feel their eyes on his back, could feel them _waiting._ And as soon as he turned to make his way through them, they were twisting again, closing together wherever he stood so there was no path open to him, bowing their branches down before him so that they creaked threateningly around his head.

He swatted at the twigs and peered around through the darkness. He was here somewhere, he had to be-- there was something urgent, something desperate that Gimli needed to tell him, and they had _promised_ that he would be here--

He stopped again, and again the eerie stillness closed around him, almost more oppressive than the trees. He strained his ears for a sound, any sound, and there was none-- no breath of wind, no creaking of branches, no rustle deep in the woods to give him a sign of where his quarry might be found.

He took a step forward and again the forest came to life. Though he had moved towards them many times, the distance between himself and the trees was never any less, as though they were pushing him back even as they called him forward, even as he knew that _he_ would be found within-- but he would not come. He would not emerge from the trees unless Gimli came to him first.

He opened his mouth to call out, and no voice came out-- only a strangled, wheezing rush of air. There was something in his throat, something blocking him from speaking. It was the forest, he thought suddenly, with a spike of panic, the forest was inside him now, growing in and around his lungs, keeping back his voice, keeping him from moving a single step forward--

He tried harder, more desperately; his lips formed the name, but the harder he cried, the less sound came forth; he tried to move, but now even his feet would not leave the ground; he was trapped, and the forest was growing around him, inside him, choking him, trapping him, and he could not move or speak or breathe, and he _could not find him._

He looked down, desperate, and saw that he was completely encased in spider silk; even as he watched it crept up his chin and over his mouth, poking up into his nostrils and suffocating him-- he couldn’t draw breath!

Legolas sat bolt upright with a horrible shuddering gasp, flailing against entangling blankets that gripped him as though he were wrapped in the tentacles of some horrible water-beast. He struggled his head free, and would have shouted if he could draw breath, but his chest felt as though it had collapsed and his vision grayed at the edges, his head floating away, lighter than--

Air. Air sucked down his throat in a white-hot torrent, and he gasped at it even as it burned his lungs. Welcoming the pain-- it meant he was alive-- Legolas choked and gasped, tumbling out of bed and winding up on hands and knees upon the floor. His fingers were bone white amidst the rich russet fibers of his rug, and his heart raced with panic-- so much so he thought he might lose the little he had eaten the night before.

Slowly the terror ebbed, and the breath grew easier in his lungs until he no longer rasped and strained. He gathered himself into a ball, curling his arms around his knees, and sat upon the rug, gazing around at the shadow-strange furnishings, which should have seemed familiar and welcoming, but were made monstrous by long absence and low light.

If this was how mortals felt when they were ill, Legolas wanted no part of it. His skin was wet and as he sat, trying to outwait the spasm, he alternated between intervals of shivering and dull, sullen heat, clutching blankets around himself and flinging them away alternately. His hair plastered itself to his skull and his throat, limp and graceless.

He could not tell what was the matter with him, or where he might have fallen victim to this malady. Was it of mortal origin, or something worse-- some devilment sent by sorcery to torment him? And if he had contracted such an ailment, what of Gimli, who had traveled with him and was mortal already?

Panic choked him again, tightening its steely grip around his chest. Legolas meant to arise, to put on his things and go to Erebor at once-- but he could not rise; his legs shook and his hands would not grasp his breeches, but fumbled them and let them fall to the floor.

His sister’s room would be only a few steps down the corridor, but the door seemed leagues away, beyond an endless sea of carpet and floorboard-- and he realized he was stretched upon the floor; he had fallen in a swoon, his cheek lying pressed against the crumpled fabric of his breeches and his arm uncomfortably folded, pinned beneath his weight. He might call for help, if only he had the air to make his lungs work… but since he did not, he must wait to be found.

Time lost meaning as he lay there, hours seeming to go by as seconds, and yet those hours stretched endless between every labored breath; he could see, suddenly, the whole of eternity laid out before him, and he was hit with the sudden certainty that _this_ was his eternity now. The rest of his long, long life would be spent here, lying on the floor of this strange-familiar room, waiting for someone to come for him; a night would be the same as a thousand years and there were a thousand years of nights left to endure. He would never rise, he would never be found--

He panicked again at the thought, unable to breathe save in gasps of fear, and then there were no more hour-seconds of agony between breaths but the agony became his entire world, air in, air out, never enough, until he was hiccuping and choking on nothing at all, and even his fingers lost the strength to clutch at the rug. He could no longer see the rest of his life stretched before him; every moment was consumed with thinking only of the next, of his lungs struggling to draw breath. His vision grew dark, until he no longer knew if his eyes were open or closed, and when he could think, he found himself longing for the release of unconsciousness, but even that comfort seemed to be denied him.

He knew not for how long he lay there in anguish; the night seemed to stretch endless and it could have been minutes or hours or years-- but finally, something new intruded on his consciousness, loud enough to draw his attention at last.

“Legolas? _Legolas!_ ” A new voice-- was he to be saved? Had someone come to pull him free of this torment? Something was touching him-- hands, the wrong hands, he knew suddenly; there was no comfort in them, and they only sent shivers up and down his arms; he would have jerked free if he could have. “Legolas, answer me-- _Ada! Nana!_ Come here _now!_ ”

The hands left him, and there was the sound of running feet, and then a thump. Someone had come into his room, he realized hazily, and he had not even heard the door. And now there were more someones, more presences surrounding him; he could feel them even if he could not see them, and he tried to cringe away, but he could not move.

“Legolas?” Another voice, this one an echo of his own panic. “Legolas, _ion_ , what is wrong? Where does it hurt?”

Then another pair of hands, one under his neck and one behind his back, lifted him until he could see the face, and he knew it through the fog that surrounded his thoughts. His mother. “Legolas,” she said, “can you understand me?”

There was something about her that calmed him, something in her cool hands or her familiar voice; he felt his stuttering breath begin to slow just a little, and he realized his face was wet. Speaking was beyond him, but he managed a nod, through a gulping sob.

“What is wrong?” Ellothien demanded, looking up. “I have never seen one of us fall ill! Is he wounded? Accursed? Is this some vestige of Sauron’s wrath, waiting to carry him away when we believed him reclaimed at last?”

“It has not the mark of the Black Breath,” Thranduil mused, his voice calm but with an underlying thread of panic. “But you must go to the kitchens, Lachwend, and bring athelas, and other healing herbs-- those that ease the breath. We will see if they fetch him from this fit. If not, we must seek counsel with healers-- perhaps Elrond of Rivendell, if he can be summoned.”

Hearing that Legolas made a soft cry of misery; for his father to seek the aid of one of the Noldor--? He must be at the very gates of death for that.

“Hush.” His mother soothed him again. “You will be well soon, Legolas. We will see to it.” She pressed her cool lips against his sweaty brow. “Thranduil, help me lift him.”

His father’s arms came under him and raised him and his mother tidied the coverlets; together they put him to bed. “He is feverish,” his mother said quietly. “I will brew him a tea to drink that should help.”

Legolas fidgeted, restive under the blankets as shivering gave way to pulsating heat.

Then his sister entered, bearing with her bundles of herbs and a kettle; his mother moved busily and set up an infusion of athelas to freshen the room, then began to prepare a tisane for him to drink.

The fresh scent of the herb swiftly filled the air, borne on steam from boiling-hot water; with it, Legolas’s lungs eased and he began to breathe again-- the tightness in his chest eased until he merely felt as if he had run too far too swiftly.

“His color is returning.” Thranduil passed a hand over his brow. “Your remedy is beneficial.”

“We will have to figure out what has caused this malady,” his mother fussed, helping him sit up and holding the cup to his lips. Legolas sipped, the warmth pleasant on his tongue; she had seasoned the bitter herbs with honey, and he was grateful for its sweetness. “Legolas, tell us-- where have you been and what might ail you?”

Legolas did not speak at first, still occupied with breathing in the soothing scent of the athelas, with the easing of his lungs and the collecting of his thoughts. But as his scattered faculties finally began to return to him, so too did the memory of his dream and the horrible freezing terror; he felt his chest try to seize up again, and he gasped, though the herbs kept his throat from closing off completely.

“Legolas.” His father knelt before his bed and took his hands, looking steadily into his eyes. “Breathe. You are safe here. If it is memory that frightens you, we will help you hold it at bay as best we can, but we must understand what has befallen you.”

Legolas nodded and gulped, with a strange hiccuping moaning sound that would have shamed him if he could have even bothered with such concerns at the moment. He pulled his thoughts together, squeezing tightly at his father’s hands to hold himself in the moment, and croaked, “Gimli.”

“Gimli?” His mother frowned, and came to kneel beside his father. “What do you mean?”

“The dwarf.” Thranduil’s face grew steely, his fingers tensing around Legolas’s. “If he has done this to you--”

Legolas shook his head frantically, cursing himself, begging his voice to work so that he could make himself understood. “No,” he gasped, “no, not him, he--” He coughed, and then wheezed as he tried to get his breath back, even as he clutched Thranduil’s hands to keep him from rising.

“Thranduil,” said his mother, her tone just as cool and hard as her husband’s, and he turned to look at her. There was a moment as a silent battle of wills seemed to pass between them, but then Thranduil glanced back at Legolas, and he sighed and closed his mouth, though the tension in his body did not recede.

“What about Gimli?” asked Ellothien. “It is fine; you may calm down; _no one_ will take any rash action,” she darted a freezing glance at Thranduil, “but we need to understand.”

Legolas nodded and closed his eyes to ground himself, gripping his father’s hands tightly and breathing in the herbal infusion. “I dreamed--” He shuddered. “I dreamed of him, and I-- something is wrong. If I-- if this is some curse, I know it has affected him as well.” He opened his eyes and gave his parents a pleading glance. “I must go to Erebor, to see if he is well; I meant to last night, but I-- but I--”

“Hush.” His mother laid a hand gently over his forehead. “You will go nowhere until you are better.”

“But-- but he--” He struggled, thrashing at the confining blankets. “But I-- I need--”

“We will take care of you,” she promised. “Rest easy.”

Legolas tried to obey, but he could not manage it; he was too weak to rise, but he thrashed about on the bed, sweating and shivering, panic barely held at bay. He kept his mother and sister busy replacing the infusion with hot water, straightening his blankets, and opening or closing windows as his personal preference changed from moment to moment.

Their faces gradually grew taut and pinched with worry; he realized after a while that days were passing; sometimes when he opened his eyes the windows were dark and sometimes they were light again, and he wondered what had happened while he was unaware, but he could call no memory to mind-- or perhaps he could, but he could not tell whether he was sleeping or waking; at times his mother’s face seemed to belong to someone else-- a dwarf, but not Gimli.

Perhaps his father had summoned a dwarvish healer; it made as much sense as one of the Noldor, for dwarves were far closer and more accessible. The dwarf who bent over him certainly seemed concerned: feeding him delicious stew and bread, keeping him covered when he kicked the blankets away, and helping him take care of bodily needs. Legolas tried to thank him, but he blinked and his mother was back once more, calling his name.

“He is worsening, father,” Lachwend murmured in the background. “Perhaps it is time to seek help.”

***

Gimli woke with a start, breathing heavily through his mouth, slick with sweat. It took him a moment to orient himself: he was in a warm bed, heaped high with blankets. He was not in his own bedchamber, but neither was he lying on the floor in a dim, shadowed room, as he had thought for a moment. The room was mostly dark, but warm; a fire blazed in the hearth, and there were soft cushions beneath his head.

What--?

It came back to him slowly, filtering through the haze around his thoughts. Erebor. Yes, he had returned to Erebor, but he had been placed under quarantine, because the new king thought he might be carrying some sort of disease from Mordor--

Gimli scowled. Bad enough that the people on his travels had refused even to come near him; now he was to be treated the same way by his own kin! It was only to be expected that he might fall ill after such an experience and such travels as he had had. Of course he did not wish to infect his parents or his niece and nephew, but this seemed to be taking caution a bit too far.

Muttering under his breath, he turned to the side and discovered that some thoughtful soul had left a handkerchief on the bedside table; he made use of it now, blowing his nose until a tiny space opened up to ease his breathing. Then he pushed himself up on his pillows, closing his eyes for a moment against the throbbing headache that the motion brought on, and surveyed the room.

There was a fire in the corner; that he had noticed. His armor remained on the stand where he had laid it the night before, but fresh clothing had been folded and laid on a chair beside it.

His throat ached, but his stomach growled, and he dimly recalled a mention of soup the day before. Perhaps he could go ask where some might be found. But when he made to rise from the bed, he found that his body protested the motion, and had in fact developed an unyielding desire to remain exactly where it was. Gimli stared across the room in longing frustration, unable to convince himself to stand.

“So, you are awake.”

Gimli startled, realizing another dwarf sat with him-- Brosi sat in a chair in the corner, leaned back on the two hind legs and propped against the wall with his chin on his chest, his beard flowing over his belly like a blanket.

 _“Agnâtnadad,”_ Gimli greeted him, wincing at the feeling of the word in his nose and throat. “I am.”

“Are you hungry?” Brosi asked, and when Gimli nodded, he reached behind him and pulled a bell-rope. While they both waited, Brosi passed Gimli the clean nightshirt that had been left for him and kindly turned his back as Gimli changed. The fresh clothing did nothing for his cold, but it was much more comfortable than his grimy traveling clothes, and no sooner had Gimli finished changing than a slot in the door slid open and a tray passed through, bearing a pot with a lid.

“It is still warm,” Brosi noted. “Your mother will be pleased.”

There was also a loaf of bread and a flagon of weak beer, droplets of water condensing on the sides. Gimli reached for it eagerly, but grimaced after the first sip.

“This beer is barely piss,” Gimli complained.

“It is best you save your strength for healing rather than for sobering up.” Brosi served the stew calmly, ladling a stoneware bowl half-full and adding a hunk of bread. “The stew is spicy, the better to help clear your head.”

Gimli took a cautious bite; the spice was so strong it penetrated the fog in his head, bringing a delicious burst of flavor across his tongue, which had not, he thought, worked properly in some time. He sighed with pleasure and took another bite; the warmth helped him swallow, and he took a swallow of the beer to chase it, groaning with pleasure when his dry mouth abated and his stomach growled with eagerness.

Ten minutes later, half the pot of stew, all the bread, and all the beer were inside him and Gimli was left to ponder the wisdom of having eaten so much so quickly; his belly stretched tight against his nightshirt, and he belched at length, paying proper compliment to his mother’s excellent cooking.

“May I go now?” He felt much improved, and pushed up onto his feet-- only to sway and fall back onto the mattress again, for his legs would not hold him.

“You are still sick,” Brosi said, unmoved. “If you seem improved tomorrow, others may visit you, provided they come masked.”

Gimli meant to protest, but the warm food in his stomach made him feel heavy and drowsy, so it came out in a yawn instead, and he realized his eyelids were sliding downward again. This time he managed to make it onto the pillow under his own steam, and was aware of Brosi pulling the blankets over him before everything faded away.

To his great irritation, and to his family’s increasing dismay, his condition improved little over the next two days. No matter how much food he ate, or how much herbal tea, beer, or water he drank, his head and throat continued to ache, his legs refused to support his weight, and the painful, chest-rattling cough would not abate. And all the sleep he took (and there was much indeed; he felt almost as though in those days he made up all the sleep he had lost throughout his journey) brought him no ease in body or spirit, but only increasingly troubled dreams.

Worse-- the dreams seemed always the same. After that first harrowing nightmare, nothing had been so clear: only a vague sense of captivity, a strange panic held only partly at bay, and he always woke up gasping before he remembered again where he was, that he was safe.

But they were always in the same place, as well; when he could catch flashes of his surroundings, he was always in the same large room, with smooth stone walls and wide windows hung with sheer green drapes. Occasionally a face would drift into view, a face he did not know, but which was familiar to him in the dreamspace he occupied. An elvish face. And he remembered that first dream, that desperate sensation of searching but not finding, and gradually a terrible suspicion began to creep over him-- though he could hardly bear to admit it even to himself.

In the meantime, Brosi was given charge of his care-- which Gimli imagined was little to his liking; surely this was not what he had intended when he had taken his oath to protect Erebor from all threats. But he did not complain, and Gimli thought that if he must be kept in quarantine, at least he could regularly see a familiar face.

Brosi was no healer, though, so others regularly came in to examine Gimli, ostensibly to determine whether or not his illness was some curse from Mordor. They placed a variety of aromatics in the room, hoping to drive away sickness and built up the fire until Gimli thought he might roast alive; one of them smoked a pipe and blew the smoke over him while chanting, but none of their remedies seemed to take. As a final resort, as though he suffered from the Black Breath itself, they even infused the room with athelas-- which did ease the congestion in his lungs and nose, but the effects did not last when the herbs were removed, and none of it seemed to give the healers any better idea what ailed him.

It was his sister, who Brosi finally admitted into the room (Gimli suspected it was under great duress, possibly a threat to withdraw affection from the marital bed), who at last gave voice to Gimli’s own fears. She wore a mask with a birdlike beak affixed, filled with potent herbs and scented shavings, as prescribed by the healers. When she entered, she came straight to his bed and gave him a narrow look.

“Gimli, tell me true,” she said. “Is there a chance, perhaps, that you may have met your One? Think with care-- who did you see or meet before you fell ill?”

Gimli scowled. “I think it is something in the air-- the dust of trees from Fangorn, or from the Greenwood. It is what men call an allergy, nothing more.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Now you find an explanation, once I have supplied one you dislike?” she said. “If it were such an allergy, would it not have troubled you earlier? And ceased to plague you once you returned to your home?”

“It may be on my clothing or in my hair,” Gimli gave her a dark look. “As I have not been allowed to wash, I cannot say!”

She looked unconvinced. “Perhaps,” she said. “And certainly you should have been supplied with bathing things.” Her face grew wrathful for a moment, and Gimli thought Brosi might receive an earful later, though Gimli himself had had no desire to be assisted in bathing. “But I notice that you are quick to disregard the idea that it might be the _amral barzûlegûr_. I would think, given your constant complaints of your quarantine, you would be eager to entertain any possibility, so that we might have you released to your own quarters again.”

“I was not around anyone who would have provoked such an illness,” Gimli muttered. “I was ill be--” he fell silent then, scowling.

She said nothing, only waited with a hand braced on her hip and one eyebrow raised. No one could stare like Geira; even with the absurd mask, she managed to look intimidating, and Gimli looked away, fumbling with his handkerchief as though to distract her. But he could still feel her eyes on him, and finally he set it aside and abandoned his pretense.

“Before Laketown,” he finished with great reluctance, feeling unjustly persecuted. “Perhaps you mean to imply that I found my One in an Ent of Fangorn, or that I was seen by someone hiding beside the path!” Inside, his heart was sinking, the blood pounding through his heart faster than it should. It could not be-- it _must_ not….!

She shrugged one shoulder, still looking at him with piercing eyes, as though she understood that he was hiding something. “If you say it could not be, then I suppose it cannot,” she said, but her tone did not make it seem that she was releasing him from her scrutiny. “I merely sought to offer a possible solution. For if indeed it were to be _amral barzûlegûr_ , triggered by separation from your One, I thought you might wish to look to their health-- for they would surely be suffering similarly.” She turned away then, her tone abruptly light. “But-- ah, well, I suppose if there is no one it could possibly be, then we must simply continue searching for solutions here.”

Gimli launched himself to his feet, agitation overcoming caution. “If he is ill-- I must go to him--” he said, snatching his armor from the stand and struggling to pull it over his head without even bothering to put on more than his nightshirt beneath it. But then he stopped, half turned away from her, color rising to stain his cheeks. His hands closed to fists, crumpling the fabric of his mail. His arms trembled with the strain of holding it aloft, the weight of the metal too much in his weakened condition. How could he go to Legolas thus?

“He?” She caught his arms and took the mail from him, replacing it on its stand and guiding him back to his bed. “So there is someone?” She pressed him back into the pillows, brute strength overcoming his feeble attempts to push her away, and soon enough he subsided, panting.

“I have… a friend. Perhaps he was exposed to the same sickness as I was,” Gimli mumbled. “Maybe his… family knows of a cure.” But it could not be so-- if Geira was correct, then Gimli alone suffered, for his One was not a dwarf at all, and all the lore Gimli could recall taught that the _amral barzûlegûr_ was a malady unknown to other races.

“A friend,” she said. “Indeed. Well, we might ask him for any cure he may know. Or possibly have him brought here, for you might be glad to see your friend once more, particularly if he did happen to… contract the same illness.” She drew the covers over him again, ignoring his protests. “You are not strong enough to travel; simply tell me his name, and we will have him sent for-- no matter how far away he might be.”

“You do not understand,” Gimli said, his heart hollow. “Even if he were my One, I am surely not his. And there is worse still.” He could not say it. _”Namad,”_ he tried to find the words, but they thwarted him. “Among our company, there was _only one dwarf._ Do you not see?”

For the first time, she hesitated, clearly unsure. “Well,” she said at last, taking a breath, “well, I have never heard of such a thing before, but I suppose that does not make it impossible. And indeed, that makes it perhaps even more urgent for you to be healed. It is not ideal— if it is… a man, or-- or even one of the halflings they say you traveled with-- It would not be easy, Gimli; their lives will pass so quickly—“ Her face showed distress for a moment, but it smoothed over quickly into a mask of determination. “But if he is your One, we must still do what we can for you. And is it not worse to suffer alone for all your days than to have one to share them with, even if they are not all to be spent together? Surely you cannot think this is worth it?”

“Even you,” Gimli said, his lids heavy in spite of himself; he struggled against fatigue. “Even you will not speak it. Then how could I?” He gazed up into the shadows of the ceiling, working to master himself, forcing away the weakness. “How should I say that it is an--” he closed his eyes and slicked his dry lips with his tongue; she brought him water and he drank, grateful, though she might never be moved to aid such a disreputable brother again. “An elf,” he said, and squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to see her face.

There was a long, long silence. He wondered if she had simply left-- left the room, left his life, gone to tell the healers that his malady was in fact worse than a curse from Mordor, that he should be exiled for insanity or betrayal-- but he could not bear to open his eyes and find out.

At last, there was a long rush of air, a deep sigh, and her hand came to rest on his forehead. “I suppose you know I am not glad to hear this,” she said, “and that _Amad_ and _Adad_ will be less pleased still. But--” She paused, and then sighed again. “But none of us wish to see you suffer, and we would not wish on you a long life of ailing and pining out of fear of your kin’s reaction. If your One is an elf, then-- then I suppose he is an elf, and we could hardly change that, even if we were to try.” He dared to open his eyes, and saw that she was looking down at him with sympathy, rather than the disgust he feared. “So I ask again, will you not tell me his name?”

“Do you not know? Did the rumors not come back from Rivendell? Did _adad_ not say who was among our company?” Gimli’s voice was a rasp in his chest, and his lungs burned. “It is Thranduilion, son of our father’s old enemy-- his name is Legolas.” He could endure no more; and he let himself sink against the pillow, lids closing.

“Oh,” he heard her say faintly, but she spoke no more. He knew not whether she stayed or went, but she was quiet enough to let him sink at last into the merciful embrace of sleep.

***  
Gimli slept uneasily, the words he had spoken to his sister echoing down the long halls of his mind and into the shadows of consciousness. He could hear the echoes breeding, clashing-- becoming the ring of steel upon metal and the squeals of injured orcs. He sprinted forward, battle lust igniting in his mind-- and found himself amidst the great force of orcs he had fought upon the Pelennor. Legolas was not far away, the zip and whine of his arrows singing over the roar.

Gimli faced a great uruk clad in black mail and with a steel bar rammed through its nostril; it was three times his height, but it folded when he reversed a sweep of his axe and took its hamstring behind the knee.

He laughed as it fell, whirling away-- and battle claimed him, the heat and stink of it as familiar as it was terrible. _Mûmakil_ trumpeted and men screamed, but Legolas and Gimli fought side by side, so well-coordinated as to seem untouchable, Gimli catching any orcs who drew near Legolas while he was busy at his draw, and Legolas picking foes off before they could catch Gimli unawares from behind.

The melee seemed to stretch endlessly, just as it had done on the day-- and ended just as abruptly when Gimli wiped sweat and blood from his brow only to discover that there were no more foes left to fight. Legolas stood at his side, gazing about; but as he watched the elf, Gimli realized he was not unscathed. A glancing blow had scored against his shoulder, and a scrap of his tunic hung awry, darkened with blood.

“You are wounded, Legolas,” he cried, reaching in vain to find a clean patch near the hem of his tunic; all was fouled and filthy. “We must go into the city, so you can be tended.”

“I need only to clean the wound. It is not deep.” Legolas grimaced. “And yet, I cannot reach it.”

“Come, then,” said Gimli, and he reached up to touch Legolas’s shoulder where his tunic had been ripped, where the skin was bared and warm beneath his touch. A smear of blood remained on his finger; he gazed at it for a moment, this reminder of his friend’s mortality, for all that it was different than his own. “We will go behind the walls together, and I will tend it for you.”

And then they were there, as easily as his words, in the small chamber they had shared for rest during those days in Minas Tirith before the final march on the Black Gate; time and space had slid around them, and now Legolas sat before Gimli, his back only inches from Gimli’s chest, his tunic removed and his torso bared. Gimli’s own had gone as well, he realized, the heat of both their bodies filling the space between them with no cloth to form a barrier, and he knelt behind Legolas, hands on his shoulders, almost close enough for his beard to brush Legolas’s back.

There was a mirror before them, and Gimli could see every flicker of expression on Legolas’s face, in his eyes. He knew no longer whether this was memory or dream, but it was more real than anything else in the world: the warmth of Legolas’s skin beneath his hands, the light swiftness of his breathing, the raw openness in his eyes.

“Do you trust me?” Gimli whispered.

In the mirror, Legolas’s face grew soft, his eyes half-lidded. “I trust you,” he whispered, and then he closed his eyes and tilted his head back until it rested against Gimli’s shoulder.

Gimli touched his fingers to Legolas’s wound; they had found no cloth for it, but he traced them along the line of the shallow cut and it sealed where they brushed along it, smoothing over until Legolas’s shoulder was clean and unblemished once more.

“You are healed,” he said wonderingly, gazing down at the place where the wound had disappeared.

“I need only your touch to heal me,” said Legolas, his eyes fully closed now, and he purred softly, deep in his throat, reminding Gimli that his hands still rested on the elf’s shoulders. It did not seem that Legolas wished for him to remove them; the elf leaned back with his hair spilling over Gimli’s shoulders and tangling into his beard, and Gimli very nearly rumbled a moan at the soft tickle of spun silk against his flesh.

“You are bruised,” he said, sweeping fingertips over the elf’s perfect back. “How did it happen?”

“A club came through my guard, once. And I was forced to roll many times; sometimes there were stones where I landed.” Legolas’s voice vibrated through Gimli’s fingertips, a hum of pleasant sensation.

“Then I will tend these hurts, as well,” Gimli said, and reached for salve-- not pausing to wonder where it had come from; such things did not matter. He dipped his fingers into the cool salve and spread it over Legolas’s skin. The friction caused the salve to warm, and he watched Legolas shiver: he could imagine how it felt to feel brushstrokes of warmth drawn across weary, aching skin-- erasing the marks of battle with each pass, until Legolas was pristine and perfect once more.

Yet still Gimli touched him-- his mind not on healing now, but on savoring the sculpted perfection beneath his hands. Rock hard muscle, long slender bone-- and a soft, fine dusting of hair, barely visible, silky under Gimli’s callused fingers.

Fingers which even as he watched dared to stray upward until they slipped beneath the elf’s long, fine locks, as if he passed his hands inside the curtain of a waterfall, cool and pure. He swallowed thickly, lifting the soft mass and bundling it between his hands, then smoothing it to one side. The fine hairs at the base of Legolas’s neck prickled visibly, and Legolas sighed, but he made no protest.

Gimli’s hands swept once along the column of Legolas’s neck, up and down, and then back into his hair. His fingers dove into the bundle he had just made and spread it out again, until fine strands veiled every part of Legolas’s shoulders and upper back, down to his waist-- as though almost robing him in his own hair, a gauzy covering that clung to his skin. But his fingers did not stop their motion: weaving again through Legolas’s hair, making and unmaking braids and twists, sculpting it with the finest and most careful craft.

And then they glided up again, up through the underside of his hair, to brush against his earlobes: cold fire burning wherever they touched, setting light to the pleasant warmth they had brought with them before. Legolas moaned quietly in his throat, and he opened his eyes at last to behold Gimli in the mirror before him.

Gimli was not looking up, but only down at Legolas’s head between his hands; his eyes were half-lidded and his lips slightly parted. His expression was soft, tender in a way Legolas had never seen it, and yet fiercely concentrated as he ran his fingertips gently along the curves of Legolas’s ears, up to the tips and then back down.

“Gimli.” His voice was half-moan, half-breath; he could muster up no more tone. “Gimli… I need you to…”

“What do you need of me?” asked Gimli, and his hands did not stop their gentle motion. “Whatever you ask of me is yours.”

“I need… your touch,” said Legolas. Something in him was awakening now, something frantic and flapping in his belly and his chest; suddenly the pleasant warmth was all gone in fire and ice and he sat up, turned around to clutch at Gimli’s wrists where his hands came free of Legolas’s hair. “I need you, Gimli--” it welled in his chest now, his voice rising to a wail even as the desperation in his body surged to a fever pitch-- “I need you to touch me!”

“I am touching you,” said Gimli, but he was not-- his wrists were between Legolas’s hands and yet they were too far away, too little; Legolas surged forward to press his body against Gimli’s and he did not feel it. “I am here, Legolas; I am right here--”

“No!” Legolas clutched at him, but he was not there, though he was; he was solid and yet insubstantial; it was not enough, and his chest seized in desperate spasms of fear. “No-- no, Gimli-- _Gimli_ \--!” and the room in Minas Tirith was gone, and Gimli was gone, and he was in his own chambers once more, upright in bed, shaking and sweating and clawing at his own chest and throat, begging for breath, begging for something that was gone, swallowed up in the dreamscape that was no more.

“Legolas? Legolas!”

He curled forward, shivering violently and struggling to breathe, unable to respond; beside him, the same voice hissed out a string of particularly filthy curses, in mingled Sindarin and Westron. Then there was the patter of feet, a hiss of water-- and the herbal infusion was freshened, steam filling the room and lessening his torment, until he could open his eyes and see who stood before him.

Lachwend had returned to his side, her face swimming before his eyes, but at least unmistakably hers; he blinked, trying to clear his vision. She reached out to rest a hand on his forehead, frowning in concern, and he forced himself to concentrate enough to gasp her name.

Relief filled her face at that. “You know me, at least,” she said. “Do you know where you are?”

“Home.” He could no longer sit up, but his body trembled madly as he tried to lower himself back down, his teeth chattering. Lachwend reached out and took his weight from him, easing him back onto his pillows and tucking the covers around him when the violent shivering did not let up.

He tried to thank her, but could not muster the words. He forced a quivering smile instead and she sighed, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “How do you feel?”

Legolas did not even bother trying to answer that; he mustered all his energy to give her a dull stare, and she sighed again. “Is there anything I can do to ease your suffering?”

He did not even know where to begin with his questions, and he could not think of anything that could be done, so all he rasped instead was, “I was not aware that you knew those words.”

She blinked in surprise, and then laughed. “There is much you do not know about me, it seems,” she said. “While you were away, _someone_ had to take up administering trade with Dale.”

Legolas nodded vaguely and turned onto his side, curling his limbs together again and focusing on his breath. He was still shaking, he noticed almost absently, but at least his mind was clearer than it had been in some days-- it seemed that these dreams broke up the daze of fever, if nothing else.

Lachwend’s mind seemed to be in the same place, at least as far as his dreams went; she tucked her legs up under her on his bed and looked at him at length. Then she said, “You were crying out the dwarf’s name in your sleep.”

Legolas had not the strength to blush. “He was my companion through many perils.” The words were hardly more than a breath, but he saw she understood. Behind her, his mother and father entered the room; perhaps a sentry was listening and had reported him awake.

“Legolas is weak,” Lachwend said. “And his mind wanders through evil dreams when he is not with us. Yet I mark that always he is concerned for his companions-- one in particular. I wonder if he perceives a danger to that friend. Perhaps he, too, is ill.”

She was, at least, tactful-- more so than Legolas would ever have expected.

“It may be so,” Thranduil said, thoughtful. “For if this illness is capable of injuring an elf, think how much worse it may be for--”

Legolas gave a noise of distress and struggled to rise.

“Shush!” Ellothien scolded Thranduil, her hand catching his arm. “You do him harm by making him worry.”

But he had been worried already; he had been worried since before this, and how could he have allowed himself to forget, even through the delirium, that he had made it his goal to go to Erebor? He shook his head fiercely, then nodded, unsure which gesture was responding to which unasked question, ignoring the way the motions made everything swim around him.

Lachwend looked at him once more. “What makes you so concerned, Legolas? What reason have you to suspect that something has befallen your friend?”

Her tone was not one of hostility, but of true question-- but his tongue was numb in his mouth not only from his infirmity but from sudden reluctance. How could he speak of the dreams he was having, the desperate need for Gimli’s presence, for his touch-- for the way his absence felt like a strangling presence all its own, how it made his lungs fail and his skin freeze, until he felt the only cure would be seeing him well and whole once more?

“I know not,” he managed at last. “But I feel it.” And he cast her a pleading look, begging her not to make him explain further.

She gazed at him thoughtfully, as though she could read what he did not say. “Though he is no seer, I believe he speaks rightly. At the least, if we were to inquire after this friend, we could ease his mind-- or discover more of this sickness.”

Legolas managed an emphatic nod, though it tired him greatly; he lay with his head swimming, working to follow the thread of their argument.

“Who is this friend? Perhaps he is many lands away,” Thranduil said, voice filled with doubt.

Legolas wished that he were at full strength, if for no other reason than to reprimand his father for his obstinate refusal to see the answer. As it was, he cast a pleading look at his sister, and she rolled her eyes back at him, the understanding passing between them without words. “You know which friend,” she said, “even if you are determined not to admit it. It is the dwarf Gimli, of whom he spoke that first night.”

“Yes, he did,” Ellothien said, her voice rising with eagerness. “Perhaps the dwarves know of this malady. They may have a remedy for it that we do not know. Ever our healers struggle with the afflictions of mortals-- the only one of us who knows much of them is the Lord Elrond; the rest of us are better able to tend to wounds received in battle.”

Thranduil’s face was pinched unhappily, but he kept his mouth shut-- a wise idea, Legolas thought, in the face of his wife’s sudden hope. He took advantage of his father’s silence and nodded vigorously-- a motion which quickly exhausted him, but it was worth it: even if Gimli knew nothing of this, it would do Legolas good to know that he was well, and if he was not, they might at least suffer together.

“It will ease him. Look,” Lachwend gestured toward him, impatient. “Can you deny him this, when he is so ill?”

“The dwarves who guard Erebor will not greet our messenger with open arms--”

Legolas’s sister spoke then, an obscenity of men that made Thranduil’s eyes snap open wide with affront, and suggested an impossibility that the dwarven guards might seek to perform, should they refuse to assist.

“Lachwend!” cried Ellothien, equally scandalized-- but Legolas, almost to his own surprise, found himself laughing: a breathy chuckle, closer to a groan, but the closest to mirth he had come in days. And at the sound, he felt all their eyes come to rest on him-- and it was as though some tension had been drained from the room, some tiny bit of lightness restored.

“Send for the dwarf, then, and if he cannot come, let us arrange for information to pass from their healers to ours,” Ellothien said. She cast a stern look at Thranduil. “No amount of pride is worth our son’s suffering.”

He froze and took a deep breath, his eyes flickering back down to Legolas. With the last bit of energy he could muster, Legolas turned his pleading eyes on his father, and at last, Thranduil nodded.

“I will see that it is done at once,” he said.

Relieved, Legolas sank away from consciousness-- toward the dreams which waited for him within.

He found himself in darkness-- abed in a warm room-- or perhaps the warmth issued from the blankets around him-- from another being, he now perceived, lying close to him, tucked beneath the coverlet.

Legolas would have felt fear, should have felt panic-- but he did not; when the warm weight in the bed shifted and pressed up against him, he felt a shiver of strange sensation, as if warm sunlight had found its way into his belly and set up a glow inside, so strong he felt his own flesh would glow, radiant with the heat that poured through him on the tide of his blood.

It was a relief, bringing life to limbs that had lain dull and dead, chill with fatigue; he lifted his arms and brought them about the body he held, drawing it closer. It smelled familiar-- dusky and sweet with pipe-smoke, a familiar scent-- and he should know who it was he held but some part of him, still sluggish and lazy, did not know-- did not care, not as long as they lay close.

His companion shifted and their legs tangled; breath mingled between them on a sigh. Long, thick hair filled his hands, and he combed through it with lazy, luxuriant delight, burying his fingers deep. Lips brushed his-- lightly, as though by accident, then firmer, with intent and purpose behind them.

He moaned, longing to taste them again, and was rewarded with a lingering kiss that tugged lightly on his lower lip, teasing his mouth softly open. Yet there was no urgency in it, only comfort-- comfort and slow dawning pleasure, the glory of being close at last after long separation.

A hand swept up his side, tracing over his chest and shoulders, fingers drawing lines of smoldering fire up the length of his neck and along his jaw; his face was cupped and tilted. His companion drew back, breathing warm against his cheek and ear, and then pressed forward again; he moaned once more and felt the sound vibrate between their mouths.

This was the answer, he knew, although he could not remember the question. This dark, this closeness, the press of mouths and bodies, the soft sounds of his companion, the hot, damp breath against his lips and face and hair. It was like nothing he had ever known, and yet it completed him. He shifted, and felt the warm, sturdy weight of the other body cover his; his thighs parted around its waist and they pressed together, a shock that startled him out of his dreamlike lassitude. He moved with sudden urgency, bucking up against the other, and a low growl breathed into his mouth.

Then the sweetness muted, instantly, into fire-- a tangled struggle toward bliss, the two of them striving for dominance, striving for completion-- as they had always strived together, driving one another onward in joyful rivalry, rolling over and over and struggling to pin one another down, then being flipped and consumed, the kisses hot and clinging, tongues darting and diving between their mouths.

Oh, but this was a battle both would win-- he could feel it now in the hot hard length against his belly, and in the searing pulse of urgent lust that hardened his own body, spiraling toward completion. He seized upon his lover, sinking teeth gently into his throat-- and was rewarded with a wild cry, and fingers that dug at his back, spurring him onward, nearly-- nearly--

Gimli jerked awake, guiltily-- the sweat on his body echoed by a dampness inside his breechclout that sent shameful color through his cheeks. Perhaps he could find strength to bring himself to full satisfaction-- but no; the hands struggling to hold him down were not Legolas at all, but were Brosi’s, and there was nothing of pleasure in _that_.

“I’m awake,” Gimli grumbled resentfully. “You can let go.”

Obliging, Brosi removed his hands and stepped back, but did not turn away. Gimli tried to flick his gaze subtly down at the sheets and blankets that covered him, but he could not make out how much they might reveal-- and he could hardly ask!

“How are you feeling?” asked Brosi. “You sounded as though you were particularly… agitated.”

Gimli snarled. “How might I be otherwise, with you restraining me so that I might not escape my foes?”

“My apologies.” Brosi continued to look at him thoughtfully. “Foes?”

“I was sleeping peacefully until I felt myself seized,” Gimli insisted. He felt energized somehow-- a thready, feverish energy, but strong enough to stand, nonetheless. “Go from me now. I need to use the chamber pot.”

Brosi hesitated, but Gimli glared at him ferociously enough that he gave in and departed without further fuss. Perhaps had he not been so vexed, Gimli might have felt sorry for him-- Brosi had surely not intended to be given charge of a patient when he had taken up his post as sentry three days ago. But it was easier to be frustrated with his confinement than to face its possible meaning-- for all that his sister’s words of yesterday would not leave his mind, for all that these vivid, fevered dreams refused to allow him to forget them.

He staggered out of bed, leaning heavily on anything he could reach, and fumbled for the pitcher on his bedtable. The water was cold, but it let him clean himself-- and he was thankful that someone had changed him into a fresh nightshirt. All he need do was drop his breechclout and kick it under the bed, then swab himself clean and do the same with the soiled cloth.

He did make use of the chamber pot, then, and was in the process of collapsing back onto the bed when Brosi returned, grunting with displeasure because Gimli had slumped down on top of the blankets.

“You seem improved,” he said. “I will call for Geira.”

Gimli began the arduous task of attempting to get under the blankets, and was surprised when not only Geira, but his mother and father entered as well, all clad in ludicrous sickroom masks that made them resemble dabbling shore-birds. Gimli scowled at them, sensing some sort of trap; for all of them to have come at once, they must intend to make some argument they knew he would not readily agree to.

“Gimli,” said Glóin, coming to sit in a chair as close to his bed as Brosi and Geira would allow. “I am glad to see you at last.”

 _Yes,_ Gimli thought grumpily, _now that he could not escape,_ but he forced himself to smile at his father. It had been long, after all. “And I you,” he said. “I can only apologize for being in no fit state to embrace you, or to tell you long tales of my journeys.” He cleared his throat dramatically in demonstration; his voice was still little more than a croak.

“That can wait,” his mother said quietly. “Gimli-- Geira tells us you are only a little improved, and I can see it for myself. She believes….” Tordís’s voice trailed away, and she opened her hands in a helpless gesture.

“That it is the _amral barzûlegûr_ ,” Glóin grumbled, impatient. “Tell us truly, my son. Have you found your One?”

Gimli turned his fierce glare on his sister, who stared back at him, unrepentant. “Yes, I told them my suspicions,” she said, but said nothing more.

Her suspicions only? Then she had not let slip Gimli’s secret? He raised an eyebrow at her, and she gave her head a minute shake; he let out a sigh of relief, which snagged in a cough halfway out.

His mother leapt up in concern, and Gimli waved her back, though secretly wishing that the distraction would be enough to divert her. Geira rose instead, going to the pitcher on his nightstand and frowning in consternation when she found it empty of water. But by this point, Gimli was recovered enough, and she retreated to her own chair-- and the family continued to stare at him.

“You have not answered the question,” Glóin noted at length when the silence persisted. “Could Geira be right? Gimli-- we only want to help you recover.”

Gimli shook his head, sullen. “If it is the _amral barzûlegûr_ , then I will recover eventually.” He scowled down at his lap. “Though it will not be pleasant before or even after. It is my own business!”

They exchanged sad glances among them. “Then your One is not willing?” His mother reached for his hand, and Gimli gave it to her with ill-grace.

Geira rolled her eyes. “If you do not tell them, then I w--”

A horn-call interrupted, and a guard’s voice could be heard, interrupting their conversation. “An embassy from the Greenwood! An embassy has come!”

“That is Thorki,” Brosi muttered, dismayed. “I must go out to help guard the wall.” He rushed away in great haste, and Gimli locked eyes with his sister, attempting to scowl her to silence.

“From Mirkwood?” said Glóin, glowering. “What would any of Thranduil’s folk want with us?” His hand twitched, as though to reach for his axe, but he bore no weapon.

“Indeed,” said Geira, her face the picture of innocence. “Strange, that so much excitement might happen in such a short span of time-- first Gimli’s illness, and then an embassy from the elves.”

Gimli did not dare to growl at her, but his hands clenched tightly around his bedcovers. He was shaking, he realized suddenly; his dream was still vivid in his mind and he could think of little more than Geira’s words of the day before, that he would want to look to the health of his One. If Legolas-- if he-- but no, it could not be!

Glóin stamped to the doorway and looked out; Gimli could spy a bustle of dwarves scurrying to and fro. His father scowled.

“That is no embassy. That is the king. He rides alone,” Glóin spat to one side; he had no fondness for the elf who had imprisoned him so long ago. “What has that pale devil come for? What can he want enough to trouble us?”

Gimli gazed at the ceiling in supplication and groaned aloud. “If he wished to trouble us, why would he have come alone?” he said. Dread was growing in his belly, filling him with cold that slowly spread through his limbs. He feared he knew _exactly_ why Thranduil was here.

Glóin looked at him in surprise. “Do you speak for him now?” he said. “Who are we to fathom the minds of elves? I know not what thoughts drive him, but I can be certain of one thing: there is surely a trick. With him, there is always a trick.”

“Perhaps this time there will not be,” Geira said shrewdly, eyeing Gimli.

“Where are my breeches?” Gimli mumbled, glancing about fitfully. He would _not_ be trundled before the silver stag of Mirkwood wearing only a nightshirt! He shoved peevishly at the blankets, trying to swing his legs over the edge, and was frustrated when Geira easily blocked his efforts.

Tordís was watching them rather than Glóin, a slow frown dawning on her face. “What is this?” She stepped near Gimli’s side. “You think he has come to see you? Why would that be so?”

“If my suspicions are correct--” Geira dared Gimli with a single raised eyebrow to try to stop her and he took her up on it, lunging and slapping a hand towards her mouth as he might have done when they were children, mask notwithstanding-- he was weak, though, and she fought him off easily, pinning his arms to his sides and pressing him back to the mattress. He writhed under her hold, trying to stop her, and then realized that the spectacle he was making was wasting valuable time, and both his parents were staring; even Glóin had returned from the door where he had been hatefully watching the Elvenking’s approach.

“If your suspicions are correct?” said Tordís slowly, pinning one and then the other with her eyes.

Again, Gimli felt like a child who had misbehaved, and he subsided, grumbling. “If you will tell them anyway, then let me up and help me find my clothing,” he growled, half expecting the door to be wrenched open at any moment.

Geira released him, crossing the room and bringing a set of folded clothing from a chair for him to pull on. She even turned her back as he struggled into the breeches-- but her mercy had its limits.

“If my suspicions are correct,” she said, ruthless, “it is because his son has fallen inexplicably ill.”

All eyes went wide and turned to Gimli, who stared at the circle of open-mouthed faces without knowing what to say until his body decided the most graceful means of escape would be to pass out and topple backward onto the bed.

*****

Gimli opened his eyes cautiously, not really remembering why caution was warranted-- and got an eyeful of the Elvenking, up close and distinctly peevish, examining him from less than an arm’s length away.

“Bollocks!” he choked in dismay, trying to scramble backward and merely succeeding in bumping his skull painfully against the headboard.

Thranduil straightened so hastily he might have injured himself had he been less flexible. As he retreated, Gimli’s range of vision expanded to include his family, who were apparently all still present, staring at him and their guest as though each had grown an extra head.

“His illness appears to be similar to the one my son is suffering.” Thranduil’s voice was frosty, but his face looked pained, as if he would rather be anywhere else than here. “Though it is hard to say. Both are bedridden and weak; perhaps they were exposed to this together.”

Gimli raised a hand to his aching head, pressing his forehead to try to keep back the pounding. Through all the disorientation, the most important thing had managed to penetrate the fog in his mind.

“Legolas is ill?” he rasped, and then frowned and cleared his throat. Thranduil’s eyes were still on his face, and Gimli found himself wishing desperately that he would look away-- but there were more important concerns than that.

Thranduil nodded; looking at him so closely, Gimli could see that the Elvenking himself did not appear as composed as Gimli had always imagined him to be. His face was drawn, his jaw taut, and Gimli thought that if he had been a mortal, dark circles might have been visible under his eyes. “Since shortly after he returned home. He is fevered and delirious, and he seems to suffer from some ailment of the lungs that hinders his breathing. But when he can speak, he asks after you. He seems more concerned for your welfare than he is for his own.” Thranduil gave him a narrow glare then, assuring Gimli silently that he did not share that opinion.

Giving Geira a warning glare, Gimli tried to stare down the King of the Greenwood with sheer stubbornness. It was not an easy task, particularly given that Thranduil had several millennia of practice in that particular art himself. “I am concerned for his, as well,” he said through gritted teeth. “I wish to see him.” He expanded the glare to include everyone in the room. “Please take me to Legolas now.” His heart squeezed tight in his chest at the very thought, and he felt his face go red, but he refused to be the one to look away first.

Geira took a breath and puffed up as though she would explode of smug self-righteousness; Glóin and Tordís merely looked ill. Thranduil glanced to them, seeming less certain than Gimli had ever thought to behold.

“I think that would be best,” Geira said swiftly. “But Gimli is not well enough to travel. Is your son fit for the journey?”

Thranduil shook his head without even pausing to consider. “I--” He _hesitated_ then, and his head fell forward, just for a moment; the next words came swiftly, almost in a mumble. “I fear to even move him from his chambers-- and I would not risk the time it would take to return home and then come back here.” He raised his head and swung it around to fix his stare on Geira. “You say it would be best for them to see one another, you speak with certainty of something you say would aid-- if there is anything you know about this illness, you must tell me at once.” He paused then, and his face twisted as though he had eaten something particularly sour. Through gritted teeth, he added, “Please.”

Though under any other circumstance the spectacle of Thranduil being so painfully polite to his sister would have pleased Gimli to no end, he thrust himself bolt upright in bed. “Geira, if you speak so much as a word, I will shave off your beard!”

“As if I valued it more than the health and happiness of my brother?” She set her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing fire.

Gimli sagged where he sat. He could not preserve the secret if it meant Legolas would suffer. If he must endure shame and rejection to save his friend then he must.

“It is a dwarvish malady,” he muttered. “I have never heard of any other suffering from it.”

Thranduil arched an elegant brow, impatient for him to go on.

“It is called ‘ _amral barzûlegûr_.’” Gimli glared down at the rumpled sheets and at his coarse hands uncomfortably knotted atop them. “It afflicts those whose souls are bonded.” A coughing spasm seized him, mercifully sparing him from continuing.

“Uniting them should therefore break the hold this illness has upon them, and allow them to recover,” Geira interjected helpfully when he was unable to go on. “We had just diagnosed him.” She gave Gimli a spiteful look. “He was not particularly helpful.”

“We?” said Glóin, speaking up at last and directing his words only at Geira. “ _You_ had diagnosed him, and-- you did not tell us that you suspected him bonded to one who is not a dwarf! Such a thing has never happened before!”

“And that prevents it from happening now?” Geira shot back. “Look at him, _Adad,_ and tell me it is anything other than what it seems! And now the Elvenking himself--” she thrust out a wild arm in the direction of Thranduil, who had not moved from his statue-still position, “--arrives in our mountain because his son is asking for Gimli, and still you do not believe?” She glared around the room, sparing none of them. “Am I the only one here with sense?”

Gimli had recovered himself as she spoke, forcing himself to breathe slowly to prevent the fit from seizing him again, but he looked down once more, unwilling to meet any of their eyes-- least of all Thranduil’s.

“I had not wanted to believe it could be true,” he said hoarsely, watching his fingers where they twisted into the fabric of his sheets. “And even when I began to suspect, I had dared to hope that Legolas would not be affected-- for it is true that this illness has never been known to afflict one not a dwarf. If for some reason the bond cannot be fulfilled, the dwarf will suffer for a time and then recover in body, if never entirely in spirit. I had thought that such a thing would transpire in this case, if I simply ignored it for long enough. But neither should it bring a dwarf to the brink of death. If it has never happened to one of another race before, how should we anticipate its effects?”

He looked up at last, fixing his stare on Thranduil, who sat still like a carven sculpture, his face revealing nothing. Perhaps any other day it might have been enough to make Gimli afraid or defiant, determined to provoke some sort of reaction, or not to give away his own secrets. But he could not drive away the haunted look he had seen in Thranduil’s eyes as he spoke of Legolas’s suffering, and desperation swept through him like wildfire, scorching away all his pride. If Legolas’s life was at risk, what use was there in hiding any longer? “You say that you fear to move Legolas from his chambers, that you would not dare even to return home empty-handed. So you must tell me: is that a truth, and not merely an overstatement to cause me pain? Is he--” He swallowed and forced himself to say it, though the words choked in his throat for reasons beyond any bodily illness, “--near death?”

Gimli’s mother made a soft sound from where she sat; Glóin looked stubbornly away, but Gimli kept his eyes on Thranduil, and with every moment of silence, his heart sank further into his stomach.

“He is,” Thranduil said shortly.

“Then if you do not take me to him, I will go to him myself-- even if I must fight my way out of this mountain and crawl to the wood on my belly.” Gimli flung away the covers and put his legs over the side of the mattress. “Where are my boots?”

“Lie back down. I will fetch a litter,” Geira said in a tone that would brook no argument, and she slipped from the room.

Before Gimli could settle his wits, he was being trundled out of the mountain borne aloft on the shoulders of four unhappy guards with his family in tow-- having hastily assembled an inadequate handful of gear and provisions from the small store the guards held ready in their supply room. Cram, canteens of water, and a roll of blankets for each… Gimli fretted even as his stomach lurched when the litter dipped as one of the bearers stumbled.

“Brosi, if you let me fall I will tell Geira who spoiled her favorite brooch by letting the stamping press fall upon it,” he growled, mustering irritation to mask his spiking concern.

“As though she would not already have my beard for dropping you!” came Brosi’s voice from beneath him. “Fine thanks you offer for one who has tended you and brought you food and clothing and now bears you upon his own shoulders to--” He broke off suddenly, and Gimli could guess that an uncomplimentary name for the Greenwood would have followed, had he not abruptly remembered Thranduil’s presence.

The Elvenking rode beside them-- well, not exactly beside. His elk would keep pace with the litter for some time, and then would gradually pick up speed, until he was riding far ahead before circling back to pace with them once more. Gimli wondered if his own father was glorying in Thranduil’s agitation, or if he was too occupied with his own upset at returning to the forest where he had once been held prisoner to care. His parents had spoken few words to him since his truth had been revealed; they had had little time to speak, but Gimli wondered what they thought-- both of him and of Thranduil riding alongside.

The jolting progress was hardly comfortable despite Brosi’s improvement, and Gimli swiftly tired of it, his stomach beginning to rebel against the sickening sway of land and sky. He swallowed hard, watching the elk’s antlers swim in and out of view; that only made it worse, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the procession picked their way down the mountainside toward Dale.

The slope made his head tilt dangerously lower than his feet, and he began to suspect he would tumble right off the board despite all of Brosi’s efforts to the contrary. Perhaps he would not make it to Laketown. Perhaps he did not _want_ to-- only the thought of Legolas kept him from pleading for them to set him down.

“He is in distress.” Thranduil’s voice was unpleasantly close. “I do not think--”

Gimli leaned to the opposite side of the board from the voice and was sick.

Brosi muttered a scathing curse, no doubt displeased to have the most recent meal Gimli had eaten spattered on his boots and tunic.

“I would give him mint tea to settle his stomach, if I could brew it as we go,” Geira fretted, her hand steadying his brow and keeping him from rolling right off the litter.

“Athelas would be superior,” Thranduil observed.

“I know my business!”

Mercifully, not long after the argument began Gimli felt the void looming and dove for it, wrapping himself in blessed unconsciousness.

It was dark again, but not so dark that he could not see, the room dimly lit by a candle in the corner, casting strange long shadows on the walls. It was empty, a terrible hollowness that made him feel as if he were a shell of himself, his heart crying out for company-- for his One, long missed, who could no longer be denied.

The room was a prison, festooned with shackles and straps-- but a prison left empty, waiting for an occupant. If he could but find his One, he could ensure he never left again; he would be with Gimli always. He lifted a shackle, its heavy chain trailing along the stone surface below, its new-forged metal gleaming dully in the candlelight. Its weight felt good in his hand, reassuring. It was well-crafted for its purpose.

He thought of it enclosing a slender wrist, which would twist and turn, but it had been made to measure, and no hand once pinned within it could be withdrawn.

As if conjured by the thought, the wrist was there-- trapped within the manacle. He felt a stab of guilt; such a creature was meant to go free, but this was all that would save him. Legolas was dying, and Gimli had no choice but to chain the elf to him with unbreakable bonds. No choice-- to save both of their lives.

Legolas knelt before him, his hands trapped within the shackles; Gimli raised the elf to his feet and guided him to a rack, with manacles at each of its four corners; it was built long and tall for the elf, and it might be tilted to allow Gimli full access to him.

Legolas raised his arms above his head and Gimli fastened them tight to the top of the rack; the elf’s hands were pinned at the wrist, trapping him. The chains were long enough to allow him to move, but only a little. Legolas tipped his head back, his long hair flowing down his back, and surveyed his wrists without resisting as Gimli stepped back onto the floor and surveyed him.

“Spread your legs.” Gimli’s voice was harsh with want-- and with not a little shame, but the elf obeyed, the perfect muscles of his thighs flexing as he arranged his feet before the rack, tame as might be.

Legolas’s head tilted back, his hair streaming down his shoulder, his eyes half-lidded. He was naked, Gimli saw now, his bare skin seeming to glow in the dark room, already slick with sweat, although he had hardly been touched.

“Gimli,” he moaned, his voice so low and hoarse that Gimli hardly knew it. “Gimli, do not let me go.”

“It’s all right,” Gimli said, tugging on the chains-- they would hold, he knew. “You are safe here. I will keep you safe.” It was the one thing he might do, though it came at the expense of the elf’s freedom.

He knelt and bound Legolas to the rack-- an iron-reinforced leather strap cinched taut around each ankle, turning up the vulnerable soles of Legolas’s feet. Then he tilted the rack to lay Legolas prone before him, and the elf moaned softly, a ghost of fear in his tone.

Gimli reassured him, crooning softly with one hand upon the elf’s ribs. One more item still dangled from his left hand-- a collar that would mark the elf his; a collar that matched the very one wound about Gimli’s own throat, hidden beneath his beard.

Gimli took his time about collaring his elf-- for the excuse of letting his hands drift across that luminous, glowing skin. Legolas did not protest, turning his head to one side looking up at him with lips parted, submitting to the binding without question. How had it come to this? Gimli could not tell. Thranduil was right; this must not happen-- and yet it had to, if Legolas were to be saved.

He brushed a wisp of the elf’s hair off his face. If he could, he would linger like this at the elf’s side, touching and tending him; he would care for him always within this safe haven, this safe prison that held them both. But he could not.

“Do you yield to this?” he asked gruffly.

“Do you?” Legolas’s musical tones returned the question to him in kind, and Gimli swallowed thickly. Resistance would come at terrible cost.

Gimli could not speak. By way of answer he stepped between the taut columns of Legolas’s thighs and let both hands slide over the narrow of his waist, then onto the tight round globes before him. He swallowed thickly, gazing down at his own thumbs, which slid along the cleft and opened it.

Legolas moaned, warm and pliant under his hands, so beautiful the sight threatened to demolish Gimli’s brain. He could not wait; the pressure to claim his One had grown too strong. Battling for control, Gimli took himself in hand, unable to wait longer and prepare the elf properly.

“Forgive me,” he breathed, and pressed through the resistance that waited, closing his eyes and beginning the long, slow slide into tight heat-- into irresistible oneness.

The struggle seemed to go on forever, both bodies rebellious, the joining unnatural but necessary between them.

He gasped for breath, willing his body to endure; pain and rapture twined their way along his senses, and he closed his eyes to seal them inside himself. Someone was moaning, and after a moment he realized it was him; harsh panting breaths and desperate moans made a song of their own between them, like the ebb and flow of the sea.

He could almost imagine himself rocked by ocean waves as their bodies moved together in echo of that endless cycle, finding a perfect rhythm that built heat into pleasure, leaving pain far behind. He moved to meet the slow, sturdy thrusts, opening himself to the binding-- and just that swiftly, everything was bliss-- the feel of Gimli’s body filling his, the callused stroke of Gimli’s broad palms, the hoarse rasp of Gimli’s labored breath-- if he were not bound, he would have wanted to reach for his love and caress him, but he could not, his fists opening and closing in spasms of eagerness, but they remained empty.

Empty, for Gimli was not really lying with him; some part of him knew it and rebelled. And yet in this rough possession lay the only safety he knew; the only safety he wanted to know.

He writhed, restless, testing the bonds but not really resisting them, aching for the concrete reassurance that he was held in body as well as in mind. The chains bit into his wrists as he tugged them, but they did not give way and he did not want them to. He was held, here, held safe and still by the chains around his wrists and ankles, Gimli’s firm grip on his waist; he could writhe and strain at his bindings, unable to remain still in his pleasure, but he would not slide away, he would not fly apart. He was safe and full and _here_ , and Gimli was here with him, body and spirit--

And then, he was not.

His voice still spoke above Legolas, his hands still left ghost-imprints on his waist, but _he was gone._ Legolas did not know how he knew this, but he did, and he cried out again, in terror now rather than in pleasure, and Gimli did not answer. The words he spoke were the same words he had spoken before, promises of love, groans of pleasure, vows that he would not leave-- but they did not answer Legolas’s pleas now. It was not him anymore, it was a dream of him, it was not real.

Gimli was a dream, but the bindings were real.

They were real, because Legolas tugged at them now with the urgent need to break free; he called upon the part of his mind that always knew where he was and when he was dreaming, and he forced it against the shackles like a mace, and they did not break. His prison was real; he was held captive now, not held together, and the ghost-Gimli was fading even as Legolas struggled, and he was alone in a prison, stretched out on a rack, helpless and empty and--

 _Trapped!_ He surged free of sleep with a gasp, but he was still imprisoned; he writhed against chains that no longer had form or substance but still held him just as surely. He could feel the pressure: not only against his wrists and ankles now, but on his whole body; he was pinned to his bed, he was alone in his prison, flat on his belly with his chest restrained and his lungs compressed and he could not move, he could not turn over, he could not breathe--

He became aware that he was moaning: deep, guttural moans of torment, punctuated by grating gasps that sandpapered across his throat and chest, and still it did not end. His heart thundered so hard that it threatened to burst free of his chest, and he almost welcomed it; then perhaps something would _open_ inside of him and end this hopeless confinement, this wretched crushing captivity: in his own mind, his own body, the limits of his heart and throat and lungs--

It was as that first night, only worse, for now he knew it would end or it would not; either he would lie here in this misery forever, trapped for all eternity in shackles that would never release him, or he would die; something would burst, but he could not bear this any longer. It was not real, and yet it was the only real thing; only Gimli could save him and Gimli would not come--

It would end in torment or it would never end at all. He knew it with certainty and yet he could not stop fighting, thrashing against the grip of the _something_ that threatened to pull him away forever; his hope was gone, and yet still, somehow, he fought on.

***

Gimli woke with a start, gasping out of the dream with the fading memory of Legolas’s name on his lips and body under his hands, his whole body awake and aching and-- unsatisfied.

He stifled a groan of frustration, attempting to roll over-- and remembered abruptly where he was when he discovered he was strapped down with only hard board beneath him and sky and trees above him, and when his sister’s concerned voice immediately filled his ears.

“Gimli?” she asked. “What troubles you?”

Gimli groaned again instead of answering-- he could hardly tell her what truly troubled him!

“He worsens,” Thranduil said. “I fear that Legolas worsens as well. We must move with more speed.”

Gimli felt himself lifted, but had no strength to protest-- never mind that; his sister was shouting, but Thranduil ignored it, putting Gimli aboard the elk and vaulting on lightly. He was held in a grip of steel as the beast surged forward, the thudding of its hooves muffled by the soft mould of the forest.

It moved with sure-footed grace, vaulting obstacles and somehow managing never to entangle its rack of antlers in the underbrush-- perhaps that was Thranduil’s magic, for none of the thorns or branches seized at him or Gimli, either.

They rapidly outdistanced the rest of the party, the forest blurring around Gimli in a dizzying whirl.

“I hope you will not be sick again,” Thranduil muttered somewhere above and behind his head. “These mortal maladies are foul indeed.”

Gimli considered heaving up everything he could-- but his stomach was shriveled and empty like a walnut; he had nothing to heave. Instead he panted and gasped for breath. He hoped Thranduil was not right about Legolas, but intuition insisted this was the last chance, and Gimli let himself be folded forward as the Elvenking leaned in, reducing the resistance of the wind so the elk might make better speed.

Gimli lolled, hardly able to breathe-- but it was not long; soon the elk’s hooves clattered across a stone bridge, and moments later they ducked into a tunnel sized to accommodate its antlers. Gimli was hardly well enough to complain or make mock; before he knew it he was being swung down and Thranduil plowed through a crowd of distressed elves, ignoring their prattle entirely, in some cases even using Gimli to knock them aside.

The Elvenking seemed tireless, sweeping up endless stairs and across small archways seeming formed of tangled roots and masonry seamlessly joined to create a regular rabbit warren of a castle-- the better to confuse invaders, perhaps. They climbed steadily, brushing aside any who attempted to approach, until they entered a lavish set of corridors the walls embossed in marble with gold embellishments, displaying interlaced designs of trees and stars.

Perhaps Gimli was hallucinating; he didn’t know-- but then a door opened, anxious faces giving way, and Legolas lay beyond in a wide bed, drenched in sweat and with his hair in matted ropes on either side of his pillow, his eyes squeezed shut, but his mouth open, gasping for breath. From time to time he would moan, breathy agonized groans that sounded wrenched from a place deep within him.

“I have brought the dwarf,” Thranduil said rather unnecessarily, then hung fire, seeming unsure of what to do-- Gimli’s sister had been left far behind in the wood.

But Gimli knew, and he began to thrash feebly in Thranduil’s grip-- he must get to Legolas, must touch him, must try to tell him all was well now.

Thranduil seemed almost surprised to find Gimli moving suddenly, and he let go-- Gimli swayed, on his feet for the first time since he had been hauled onto the litter, and staggered forward. It was only a few steps to Legolas’s bed, and those at least he could manage: he tottered across the room, stumbled over nothing, collapsed onto the bed. Crawled forward until he lay beside Legolas, and enfolded him in his arms.

“Legolas,” he choked, “Legolas, I am here, I am here, I am so sorry--”

He felt it, then, no immediate cure but a slow seeping of strength between them. His arms and chest were warm where they lay against Legolas’s body, his cheek where it brushed his friend’s face. And for a moment he could feel everything that Legolas did-- he gasped, seized by a freezing, gripping dread that wrapped his lungs in a crushing fist, and his spirit faltered, overcome by a loneliness and panic that he did not understand.

And then-- warmth. The choking tightness inside his chest loosened, then dissolved; he sucked in a deep breath and it felt like the first in days. And against him, Legolas quieted: a last moan faded into a sigh in Gimli’s ear; his chest heaved in a final gasp of panic, and then relaxed-- and Gimli could feel that, could feel the easing of fear and loss and bewilderment as though it were his own.

And was it not, after all?

He could feel it working on him as well: the strength returning to his limbs, the ache fading from his chest and head and throat. His own breathing cleared, free and unhindered. Separate, neither of them had enough strength to share; together, they had all they needed.

Against him, Legolas took a deep breath, and then another. His eyes blinked open, glazed at first, and then turning clear and soft as they came to rest on Gimli’s face. His right arm was pinned beneath Gimli’s weight, but his left hand rose, trembling, to touch his cheek.

“Are you real?” he asked, in a voice as thin and brittle as shale.

Gimli blinked hard against the burning in his eyes and reached up with his free hand to press Legolas’s closer to his face. “I am,” he said. He tried closing his eyes, but they leaked anyway, hot tears squeezing free to trickle over where their fingers had laced together against his cheek. “I am real, I promise, and I will not leave.”

Legolas gazed at him for a long moment. His eyes were wide and steady where his gaze locked with Gimli’s own. Behind him, Gimli could hear soft murmurings, but he paid them no mind and Legolas did not either; his eyes did not stray.

“You promise?” said Legolas. His voice sounded young and plaintive suddenly, and Gimli fought back another wave of tears. He nodded.

“I promise.”

Legolas let out another long sigh, deep and free and relieved. He said nothing more, but his arms came up to wrap around Gimli’s shoulders, and his head descended to burrow into the crook of Gimli’s neck-- and Gimli did not speak either, but wound himself tighter into Legolas’s embrace.

Behind them a throat cleared uncomfortably, but Gimli ignored it, preoccupied with tangling himself against as much of Legolas as he could reach.

“His breathing is improving,” a female voice said after a moment. “The rasp has left his lungs.”

“Husband…?” The second voice, also female, sounded doubtful.

“The dwarves knew of this disease and spoke of uniting them, claiming it would be a sovereign remedy.” Thranduil attempted to sound breezy and unconcerned, and failed miserably.

“They seem to have been accurate in that.” Amusement was plain in the first voice now, and consternation. “Very accurate indeed.”

“Should we… leave?” The second female voice sounded faintly scandalized. “They appear to be growing _affectionate._ Was that… expected?”

...Oh. Those were Legolas’s lips on his forehead, and fingers burrowing deep into his hair and beard. And Gimli himself had his hands full of the elf’s shining hair, and their legs were tangled so tightly his ankles had crossed behind one of the elf’s knees.

“I think we should.” Thranduil sounded as though he had bitten into his daily ration of leaves and come up with half a caterpillar in his mouth.

Gimli could not care about anything they said; he could only burrow closer into Legolas’s warmth, could only glory in the feeling of having his One in his arms at last-- _at last_ \-- but he did faintly hear a rap at the door.

“My king?” came a tentative voice. “I do not wish to interrupt, but there is a party of dwarves approaching, and they do not seem… pleased.”

There was a snort, from the first unfamiliar voice-- it was slightly higher than the other, and if Gimli had had to guess, he would have thought younger. The words proved his guess correct. “ _Ada,_ what did you do?”

Thranduil sighed, long-suffering and put-upon. “I will handle the dwarves,” he said. “Ellothien, come with me, and Lachwend--”

“Worry not, I will not stay here,” said the younger voice. “I have no wish to be present for this. I think I will come with you-- Legolas, if you can hear me--”

Legolas made a tiny noise from where his face had buried itself in Gimli’s hair.

“I am glad you appear to be getting well,” she said. “And I will tell you everything that transpires between father and the dwarves.”

“Lachwend,” said the other voice in a quelling manner. “If you will come, then come, but mind your tongue.”

“Yes, _Nana,_ ” she said, singsong.

“Was that your family?” Gimli mumbled against Legolas’s skin, which tasted of warm salt. The elves trooped out in a row, leaving them in blessed solitude at last.

“Yes. Is the new arrival yours?”

“I suspect.” Gimli sighed with pure contentment. “Elf--”

“We should have remained together.” Legolas’s voice vibrated with suppressed joy and laughter.

“You could have come to Erebor.”

“You could have come to the Greenwood.”

“I preferred to be hand-delivered by royal courier.”

“He will never live that down,” Legolas chuckled to himself. “Bringing a dwarf to his son’s bed? It will be the greatest scandal of this new age.”

“He believed you would die.” Gimli drew back just far enough to gaze into Legolas’s eyes. “This… is an unprecedented situation, elf. It is….” he hesitated. “A bonding of two whose souls are become one.”

“Yes,” Legolas said readily enough, not seeming bothered by it. “Did we share dreaming?”

“I thought that we did,” Gimli relaxed, glad that Legolas was not dismayed. “It does not happen between two who are not dwarves by blood, elf. Or it never has before,” he amended.

Legolas’s fingertips slid beneath the hem of Gimli’s nightshirt and traced warm circles on his lower back. “There is a part of me that has the soul of a dwarf, as there is a part of you that has the soul of an elf,” he said, seeming pleased.

“Do not say that before either of our fathers. It would give them great distress, perhaps even the vapors,” Gimli said, and Legolas tittered with delight at the notion.

“If they do not tear one another apart during their current interview, we may yet live to see that happen,” Legolas purred.

“Gandalf might have warned us,” Gimli grumbled. “Doubtless he knew.”

“Ever he is a frustrating counselor, prone to allow his charges to make discoveries on their own; he feels such knowledge is deeper and of more value than counsel taught by words.” Legolas managed at last to wriggle his hands completely beneath Gimli’s nightshirt. “I am starving, _meleth._ ”

“Then call for food.” Gimli too felt he might eat. “And have them bring something more filling than leaves.” The elf’s taut-muscled bottom was as smooth and silky as a baby dwarrowling’s skin.

“Presently,” Legolas sighed. “When I feel I may be separated from you long enough to take food, perhaps.”

A wave of guilt surged up within Gimli, and he had to ask. “Legolas-- the way I found you: had you been suffering thus since we parted?”

“Not always.” Legolas’s voice was edgy suddenly, as though he did not want to admit something. “Only towards the end.”

But Gimli could still remember the desperation in Thranduil’s eyes and his belief that Legolas lay on his deathbed-- and only moments ago, he might have believed it himself. “I am sorry,” he said. “Believe me that had I known such a thing might befall you, I would never have allowed us to be parted. I would have spoken, or--”

“I do not blame you,” Legolas interrupted him. “How could you have known? I did not know myself until I was away from you-- in fact, strangely enough, it was my sister who first suggested it.” He laughed softly, his warm breath puffing through Gimli’s beard. “She will be pleased with herself, I think.”

“I did not know you were affected, and I hesitated to accept the cause of my own illness.” Gimli closed his eyes, ashamed of himself. “It was my sister too who made the connection between my illness and our parting, though she did not know who you were. Such an illness is not unusual for dwarves-- it is meant as a signal, our bodies’ way of telling us when the other half of our soul has been separated from us, so that we may find them. I thought-- you are no dwarf; I hoped you would not suffer thus.”

“So you would have kept away?” said Legolas, his voice wary now. “You would have given up your own life rather than--”

“No!” Gimli could not allow him to go further down that path. “No, I would not-- dwarves do not die of denied love,” he explained hastily. “I would have been ill for some time and then my body would have recovered, though my spirit would ever hunger for its match. But I had no way of knowing if my affections would be welcome, and--” He had not allowed even himself to think this, but it had festered in his mind since Geira had spoken of the difference in lifetimes between dwarves and men. “And I did not want to bind you to a mortal, fearing what would happen to you after my passing.”

To his surprise, Legolas laughed. “And yet, we find that that matters little now.” His hands roamed up and down over Gimli’s body as though he could not touch enough. “I have seen what my eternity without you would look like, and I will have no part of it. I will take your lifetime over no lifetime at all, thank you.”

Gimli bent his head to kiss the hollow of Legolas’s throat, feeling the pulse beat against his lips, steady and reassuring. “I suppose so,” he croaked. “Still, I am sorry.”

“I am not.” Legolas moved one hand up to stroke Gimli’s hair, and Gimli relaxed almost despite himself, melting against Legolas. “I would have told you earlier, had I had the sense to know my own heart, and we could have avoided this, but... I love you.” He paused for a moment after the words, a slow smile spreading over his face, and Gimli wondered if his heart was singing the same note of joy at their rightness. “Our souls are bound, you have said so yourself, and no part of me will ever regret that binding.”

“Nor do I.” It shamed him; he could not help remembering the dream in which he had shackled Legolas, tied him to his own life-- but he remembered also that Legolas had been willing, remembered that they had both desired this-- and this would not have happened if it were not meant to be so. “I think… I regret that I cannot regret it. Do you understand?”

“I do, but there is no need for regret.” Legolas kept his hand buried in Gimli’s hair, but now his fingers moved in tiny circles at the back of Gimli’s neck, and Gimli sighed deeply. “I am glad you came to me.”

“Thank your father, then, for I was past the ability to bring myself here.” Gimli was reluctant to admit it, but they were both beholden to Thranduil for their closeness now-- and possibly for Legolas’s life. Very well. If he must thank the King of Mirkwood, Gimli would make himself as obnoxiously cheerful about it as possible.

“I will fashion a halter of leather and mithril fittings for his elk,” he said, and Legolas laughed aloud.

“Did you ride here upon it? Of course you did. Today is a day for the impossible.” He nuzzled against Gimli, his eyelids sagging visibly, though he smiled with contentment. “Sleep with me a while, _meleth_ , and then I will call for food.”

“Of course, _ghivashel_.” Gimli nestled in and let his own eyes close, content to breathe the scent of his elf and know that he was where he belonged.

They rested together long, he thought-- though sleep and dreaming mingled now with the waking world, and he knew not whether he dreamed of lying in Legolas’s arms, hearing the soft rustle of the elf’s laughter, or whether he lay wakeful and held his elf as he watched the soft breeze play in the curtains while the beechen leaves danced without, sending light shadows to play upon the wooden flooring. Perhaps he waked and Legolas slept; it mattered not, for they were united once more, and now knew that nothing short of death could drive them asunder. There was only the warmth of their bodies, twined so closely together that he knew not where one ended and the other began, and the quiet safety of a room where both of them slept, secure in closeness and comfort.

And when Legolas woke, his eyes snapped open in accustomed shock at first, in the expectation of finding himself again abandoned and alone-- but no, for Gimli still lay curled within the cocoon of his body, snoring lightly, the tangled locks of his beard and hair strewn about Legolas’s shoulders and chest, and Legolas knew that this time he was real and here, and that he would not disappear.

He sighed in contentment and worked both hands once more under the fabric of the nightshirt that Gimli wore, tracing the bones of his spine up and down, feeling solid muscle and warm flesh beneath his fingers. It felt like an anchor, for his body and his spirit alike, and he gloried in the feeling, in the new strength he felt in his own limbs. And as tightly as he was curled up, he finally felt that his chest could expand to hold all the air that it needed.

Gimli’s snoring cut off abruptly, easing into a deep breath, and he wriggled against Legolas’s hold. “Mmm,” he said. “Good morning.”

Legolas felt like laughing wildly, like springing from the bed and whirling Gimli around the room, but instead he only chuckled softly and pressed his lips into Gimli’s hair. “And a good morning to you,” he said, although the light from the west suggested that it was instead late evening. “How are you feeling?”

Gimli yawned, then made a face and smacked his lips. “Thirsty,” he said. “And famished! Did I not hear something of a promise of food upon waking?”

“You did.” Legolas’s own stomach was so empty it ached; his memories were hazy, but he did not think he had eaten since the feasting his first night home. “I will call for some.”

But no sooner had he said the words than there was a rap on his door and Lachwend opened it, balancing a tray in one hand. “You are awake!” she said, beaming. “I have brought you food and water, for surely you are hungry?”

Legolas gave her a look, frustrated and grateful all at once. “Were you waiting at the door?”

She did not answer save for a mischievous smile, which was answer enough-- and Legolas found that he could not be irritated with her. He huffed a laugh, instead. “Well, I thank you anyway, despite your ill manners. Gimli-- you have not been introduced properly. This is my sister, Lachwend, who is both a delight and a constant pain in my side.”

Lachwend rolled her eyes and came to set the tray on Legolas’s bedside table. “I had hoped to meet you eventually, after hearing how often and how fondly Legolas spoke of you, but I had not expected it to be so soon.”

“I suppose not.” Gimli looked a bit abashed, but he struggled to sit up and Legolas allowed him to disentangle himself, though it seemed that every bit of his skin mourned as Gimli’s touch left it. “Well, I am glad to meet you now, despite the circumstances.” He reached for the pitcher on the tray and poured himself a cup of water. Legolas watched him, half-expecting a complaint that it was nothing stronger, but Gimli drank thirstily and without protest.

“As am I.” She watched him carefully. “Your sister promised me it would be worth my while.”

Legolas sat up now as well, a bit dismayed at how tiring it still was to raise himself and how glad he was for the support of pillows behind his back. But he remembered Lachwend’s promises to tell him of Gimli’s family, and he looked to her now. “So you saw the dwarves, then? They are here?”

“They are,” she said. “None of them are particularly pleased about it, but some are less so than others.”

“That will be my father,” said Gimli. “He yet remembers with disfavor his most recent sojourn within these walls.”

“Indeed he does,” said Lachwend airily. “It is quite amusing to watch, truly-- our father is painfully polite, with our mother’s elbow in his ribs at every moment to keep him thus, and your family is mostly furious, except your sister, who is only slightly angry. She seemed very pleased with herself when she was told what had happened.”

“She would be,” Gimli grumbled.

“And you would know nothing of sisters who are overly pleased with themselves,” said Legolas pointedly. “Still, I should like to meet your family, as you have had the opportunity to meet most of mine.”

“You will have that opportunity very soon,” said Lachwend. “They are all in the palace, and they are… _eager_ to meet you as well.”

“I daresay they are,” Gimli grumbled. “And give you a piece of their minds, most likely, though they have little enough to spare!”

“I will be glad to meet them all, once I have recovered.” Legolas lay back, half-hoping Gimli might consent to feed him, but he was not obliged. Instead Gimli sat forward and began wrapping himself around food so rapidly that Legolas sat up and took some for himself, lest it all be devoured.

He made sure to keep his legs tangled with Gimli’s as much as he could; being away from the dwarf made him feel shaky and weak, as if he might relapse.

“What are the terms of this bonding?” he asked with his mouth full, gaining a scowl from his sister. “Must we remain in the same room always?”

“I think it will not be as arduous as all that, once the bond is settled,” Gimli said, and flicked a meaningful glance toward Lachwend, obviously wishing to reserve the details of the settling process for a more private moment.

“Geira says that you will have to consummate your union to settle the bond,” Lachwend told them helpfully, making Gimli flush beet red.

“Did she announce it from the king’s throne to the assembled citizens of the woodland realm, _so everyone would hear?_ ” Gimli bellowed.

“There was no need. Several guards were present, and they will spread her words abroad by nightfall,” Lachwend could not repress a smile.

Gimli buried his face in his hands with a frustrated growl.

“They will be glad to see us wed,” Legolas predicted optimistically. “I have been the subject of many inquiries-- since I was but a stripling of only a hundred mortal years. I believe mother had given up on the idea that I might ever wed.”

“Yes, and now I will be the only one who is tormented by requests for grandchildren,” Lachwend groaned. “Thank you for that, brother!”

“You must thank me again when I pass my uncomfortable circlet down to your firstborn,” Legolas teased her. “After all, it is a cherished family heirloom.”

“I will make you one of your own that fits,” Gimli said stoutly.

Legolas beamed at him and fed him a berry, which Gimli took with such exaggerated thoroughness that Lachwend arose.

“Perhaps I should go and let you two see to settling the bond,” she said primly.

“And yet you were so unashamed earlier!” Legolas said, laughing, and she made a face at him.

“Just because I understand such things does not mean I want to see them!” She made her way to the door. “I would say I will see to distracting our parents for you, but I think they are still busy with their new relatives.” She grinned wickedly. “I do not think _ada_ has entirely realized the significance of that yet-- perhaps I should go remind him.”

“You,” said Gimli, staring at Lachwend in something that looked like awe, “are the spirit of wickedness itself, and give proof to all the beliefs that dwarves hold of your people!” He tilted his head. “Perhaps that is why you have already made such friends with my sister.”

She simply grinned at him, and then turned on her heel and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

“And that was my sister,” said Legolas to Gimli once she had departed. “Yours, as well, now… or at least soon.”

“Soon,” Gimli echoed, putting the food tray aside and turning to Legolas. “Do you--?”

He trailed off, evidently still-- even after everything-- reluctant to speak of it. And perhaps with good reason: all this had happened so quickly, so suddenly, and yet--

And yet Legolas remembered all too vividly the feeling of being apart from Gimli, the feeling of _yearning_ in his body and soul for something that he had never known, and had never thought he would know. That feeling of loneliness made physical, of emptiness consuming him, body and soul. And he knew that Gimli was right about the origins of the illness-- that that bodily feeling had come from his soul, from a love that had startled him with its ferocity, one that would never leave him now.

He wanted this, and he did not only want it so that he would become well.

“I do,” he said, and reached up to cup Gimli’s cheek. “Of course I do.”

Gimli’s smile was slow and soft, and he reached over to the tray he had laid on the bedside table to take another berry from the dish. Legolas opened his mouth, expecting to be fed in turn-- but instead, Gimli tossed it, clearly aiming for his mouth, but missing; the berry bounced off of his cheek instead.

“Do you wish for a competition, _meleth_?” asked Legolas, picking up the fallen fruit and tossing it back. Gimli tried to dodge, but even in his weakened condition Legolas’s aim was true, and the berry landed in his half-open mouth.

Legolas raised his eyebrows in challenge, and this time Gimli did not even bother to try throwing-- he scooped up a fingerful of honey from the shallow dish on the tray, lunged forward, and smeared it down the bridge of Legolas’s nose.

As Legolas stared at him in disbelief, Gimli leaned very close. “You have something on your nose,” he said, and without waiting for Legolas to respond he held his head still with one hand and applied himself to licking the honey off of Legolas’s face.

Legolas could not hold back his laughter. “Oh, is that how it is?” he asked. “Well, I believe you have a finger that needs cleaning.” He caught Gimli’s hand in his own and nipped at the honey-covered finger.

“I believe I can arrange many more things that require the attention of your tongue, elf,” Gimli rumbled, and Legolas was eager to oblige him.

“Well, it would be a shame to ruin your nightshirt; I suspect you left in such haste you neglected to bring more.” Legolas reached to skin the garment off Gimli, who cooperated by raising his arms and wriggling, impatient curses muffled for a moment inside the thick fabric.

“What need have I of--” Gimli began, and seemed on the verge of pouncing, when a clamor of voices erupted in the corridor outside, shortly followed by the door flying open so hard it rebounded off the wall.

“Gimli!” his entire family poured through the door, half of them beaming and half scowling.

“I am sorry,” Lachwend entered on their heels. “They would not be gainsaid.”

“And why should we be, when we have not seen our son since he was dragged from our grip, ill and helpless, and spirited away by one known to take dwarves prisoner?” Legolas had only met Glóin in passing, during their time in Rivendell, but even had he been unable to recognize him, he would have known the dwarf immediately: white beard, dark, burning eyes, and clearly in a towering temper.

Gimli glared at all of them. “And yet you knew I was being taken to my One, whose presence would heal me.” He gestured at Legolas. “And I know that Geira at least,” here his dark gaze took in the dwarrowdam furthest to the right, who looked a great deal like him indeed, “was aware that I was well enough, given how willing she seems to have become to speak loudly about my personal business!”

The dwarrowdam shrugged. “They wanted information; I gave it,” was all she said by way of answer. “But I too wished to see you well. Surely you could have waited a few moments longer.” She patted the shoulder of a particularly bedraggled-looking dwarf standing beside her. “And I thought Brosi deserved to see all his pains rewarded.”

“Yes,” grumbled the dwarf, “this is exactly what I wished to see.”

Legolas groped beside him and found the discarded piece of clothing, handing it back to Gimli, who pulled it on over his head. Legolas could not help sighing as he did so, undoing all the effort that had been put into removing it, but he found himself similarly self-conscious: in bed before a family of at-least-partially hostile dwarves in his night clothing, with unkempt hair, having not bathed in days.

“Well?” Gimli demanded. “Are you satisfied that I am healed? And will you now concede to depart, so that I may complete the process?”

“Not until I have words with this one,” Glóin scowled at Lachwend. “Do not think I failed to notice you skulking there-- as you did so often before when I was your father’s unwilling guest!”

Gimli buried his face in his hands and groaned. “This will never end.”

“I had never seen your kind before,” she answered him, pert. “You can hardly fault me my interest-- especially on the day I witnessed thirteen dwarves stuffing themselves into barrels!”

“You--” Glóin spluttered in rage, but stopped abruptly, staring at her. When he spoke again, it was much softer. “You saw that? But we were not disturbed, or pursued--”

“Indeed you were not,” she said smugly. “Why should I have done so?”

Legolas stared at his sister in disbelief-- as did nearly everyone else in the room. She had never told _him_ \--

“Lachwend!” Thranduil growled from his position in the doorway, and she blanched, before turning to him to try her most winning smile.

Clearly, Gimli had been right-- the spectacle would never end if nothing was done, and Legolas had no desire to witness any more of it. He gave Gimli a searching look, and Gimli nodded fiercely, scowling. Together they rounded on their respective families.

“Please, do not take this the wrong way,” Gimli began in a diplomatic tone.

“We regret our temporary indisposition,” Legolas agreed swiftly.

“However, we must request,”

“That all of you, most respectfully,”

 _“Leave!”_ They chorused the word together and each froze his respective family with a glare.

“At once,” Gimli concluded.

“If not more swiftly.”

Geira eyed Lachwend, and the two nodded firmly; they turned and began to chivvy their relations out, ignoring all protests.

When the door had finally closed again, Gimli huffed. “They will, I trust, have plenty to occupy their tongues.”

“As will we,” Legolas said, and Gimli chuckled at the thought.

“My father will never let Lachwend hear the end of this,” Legolas mused, but his eyes softened as he turned back to face Gimli, unable to think for too long about anything other than the dwarf who sat beside him, solid and warm and real at last, and the task that remained yet to perform.

“Let us speak no more about either of our fathers,” said Gimli, and Legolas nodded vigorously in agreement. “Now, where were we?”

Legolas laughed, and reached out to tug at the hem of Gimli’s nightshirt once more. “I think,” he said, allowing a hint of mischief to creep into his voice, “we were right here.”

Gimli laughed, and let Legolas free him from its fabric once more. “I think you are right,” he said.

***

Out in the hall, the group of dwarves milled around for a moment, aimless in the halls of the Elvenking, and with a door between them and their main reason for traveling here. They shuffled their feet, eyeing the door to the bedroom with no real desire to open it again.

Across the hall from them, Thranduil stood beside his wife and daughter, similarly uncomfortable with the undesired guests in his palace-- and similarly reluctant to reopen the door to the bedchamber.

At last, Ellothien stepped forward and broke the silence. “Well,” she said briskly, “since it seems you are to be here for the night at least, we shall have you put up in guest chambers. We will have food brought to you as well; surely you are hungry after your arduous travels. Lachwend, Thranduil, if you would be so kind as to help me show our guests to where they will be sleeping?”

And the dwarvish guests were treated to the rare sight of Thranduil nodding wordlessly and obeying orders.

***

Glóin and Tordís followed Thranduil and Ellothien down two flights of stairs into a different, slightly less lavish hallway. Glóin huffed sullenly as they went; Tordís remained quiet and thoughtful. Thranduil and Ellothien were equally silent.

At last, they arrived at a door midway down the hall, and Ellothien turned to face them. “Here you may sleep until the time comes for you to depart,” she said. “We are grateful to you for making this journey, for the sake of both of our sons.” She turned a sharp look at Thranduil. “Are we not?”

After a long moment, Thranduil responded. “We are,” he said, jaw clenched, and at a nudge from his wife, he opened the door for them.

In the room, Glóin sat down on the bed-- slightly too tall for him-- and kicked off his boots. “I can hardly believe I am here,” he grumbled. “Of all things, why did it have to be Thranduil’s son?”

Tordís rolled her eyes. “Enough, husband,” she said, and silenced him.

***

Geira and Brosi followed their guide down a similar hallway, one floor away, but they did not walk in silence. Geira and Lachwend chattered animatedly as they went, their conversation touching often on the frustrations imposed on them by their various family members-- specifically, their brothers.

At last, Lachwend showed them to a door and opened it grandly. “Here you may sleep tonight,” she said. “If you need anything, simply pull on this bell-rope, and it will be brought to you.”

“Thank you,” Geira said. “It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“And yours.” Lachwend grinned at both of them, and left them alone.

Inside the room, Brosi turned to face Geira, his hands on his hips. “I did not like to say it before, as you were both so absorbed in what you were discussing,” he said. “But I agree with everything you said about your brother and more so.”

Geira laughed, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “He did make your life difficult, did he not?”

Brosi gave her a flat stare. “You have no idea.”

“My long-suffering soldier,” she said, and guided him over to the bed. “Let me make it up to you now.”

***

After they had shown the dwarves to their quarters, Thranduil and Ellothien made their way back up, into their own chambers. The walls were built of stone paneled in oak, thick enough that no sound could penetrate them, and never before had they been so glad of it.

“Thank you,” Ellothien said to Thranduil once their door was closed, and they were finally alone. “I had not realized, when I insisted on bringing the dwarf here, just how essential it would be.”

“No,” he said, and sank down onto the side of their bed, staring fixedly at the door even as his hands dropped useless into his lap. “Nor had I.”

She sat beside him and looked at him closely until he turned to meet her gaze with his own. “And now?” she said. “What do you think now?”

“You cannot expect me to be pleased,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Nor to be glad of the necessity of his presence here.”

“No, I had not expected it,” she said, and laid a hand over one of his. “In truth, I cannot say I am overjoyed myself-- that Legolas should wed a dwarf, I confess, I had never foreseen, nor would I have imagined it with any pleasure. But, Thranduil-- our son is alive.”

“He is,” he said, and his face crumpled and sank forward to rest against her shoulder, his voice thin and cracked. “He is.”

“He is,” she echoed, and pulled him close.

***

The difference between dreaming and truth was that between night and day, the dreams they had shared only the palest reflection of actually holding Gimli in his arms.

He let his palms wander over Gimli’s shoulders, basking in the reality of his presence-- the brush and tickle of Gimli’s hair against him, the somewhat powerful scent of dwarf….

Legolas laughed softly and pulled back. “Meleth, come with me.”

Putting on his well-worn nightshirt once more, Gimli arose and followed him. The corridors were quiet, echoing in emptiness, for it was late in the evening, and most of the elves had gone out to sing beneath the stars in the newfound safety of the wood.

As they walked, Legolas reveled in the renewed strength in his body, the willingness of his legs to hold him once more-- so long, anyway, as he kept hold of Gimli’s hand. Whenever he let it go, his legs trembled and threatened to fold beneath him, so he walked close at the dwarf’s side and kept their fingers laced.

They descended for many levels, spiraling around the misty torrent of a waterfall that carved into the cavern, its hissing rush filling the air around them. At its base, it formed a freshet that played between moss-covered stones and vanished through a cleft in the wall; it would later emerge as the Forest River which flowed into the lake, and which Bilbo Baggins and Gimli’s kin had used so long ago to escape from the Elvenking’s dungeons.

But before they entered the cellars, Legolas pulled Gimli into a small room where half a dozen small blue flames burned. “Here we have harnessed the vapors that seep from the earth. They may be lit to warm the air and the water,” he smiled on Gimli. “Did you think we elves always bathed in snow-melt?”

“I did,” Gimli admitted, his voice resonant in the small chamber. Legolas turned a wheel that intensified the flames, the soft whoosh echoing the rush of blood in his veins as he thought of sharing the baths with Gimli.

No others were here, but the waters had not grown cold since the last elves left this place, and they heated swiftly while he and Gimli stripped their clothes from them and cleaned the unpleasantness of long days in the sickroom from themselves. By the time they were ready, the largest pool had begun to steam, and Legolas climbed into it, turning to beckon Gimli, who frowned at it with mistrust.

“There is a seat along the rim; you will not be beyond your depth.” He positioned his knees on it and draped his chin over the rim. “Mmmm, meleth, it is warm.”

Gimli turned toward him at last, and Legolas watched with avid interest that made the dwarf’s cheeks pinken in a way that had nothing to do with the heat.

“Come to me before I begin to sicken anew for need of you,” Legolas said, and in fact his exposed skin did feel the chill of need at their separation. He reached out both empty palms, imploring, and Gimli drew near, catching them in his own.

“Elf.” His fingertips caressed Legolas’s hands with thorough care. “Are you sure you would--”

“Gimli.” Legolas’s hands tightened on his, holding him fast. “If you do not join me of your own accord, I shall haul you in.”

“And then repent of your choice, when you saw the wet and bedraggled dwarf you have chosen to wed!”

Legolas laughed, pulling at Gimli as he slid backward, his own head going beneath the surface. He emerged, water streaming from his sleeked-back hair. “I have warned you!”

Gimli let himself be tugged forward, clambering clumsily over the lip of the great basin.

“Do you grow smaller when you are wet?” Legolas mused. “Like a drowned rat?”

Gimli scowled, resisting; the elf tugged sharply and he fell forward, submerged for an instant, then surfaced sputtering-- held firmly in Legolas’s lap, where he was most wanted.

“I see you do not,” Legolas said. And in truth, Gimli’s fierce, curly hair resisted the water; it would have to be unbraided and soaped if it were to be cleaned.

“Accursed elf!” Gimli’s body belied the peevish words; he settled comfortably in Legolas’s lap, and Legolas began to unbind the long braids of his hair-- and then of his beard, humming softly.

The sharing of touch was a great comfort to Legolas, and he thought to Gimli as well; he freed Gimli’s hair and combed through it gently with his fingers, separating the strands and working water and soap through them.

Gimli relaxed even more as the water grew warmer, melting against him with a little sound that might have combined a growl and a purr. His hair floated on the warm currents, tickling at Legolas’s arms and legs; between them the elf’s body began to respond to the closeness, tucking itself against the cleft of the dwarf’s hard bottom.

Gimli seemed to pay it no mind, luxuriating in the feel of Legolas’s fingers in his hair-- and in truth, Legolas made the washing last far longer than it needed, soaping and rinsing and soaping again, loving the work and the trust it demonstrated between them.

But at last he moved Gimli to the side and helped him tip his head back under the warm freshet that kept the basin continually filled while washing away stale water through the drain at its bottom. He had half expected Gimli to resist, to insist on his ability to care for himself; Legolas could hardly imagine he had done anything less, even through the long days of illness. But Gimli remained warm and pliant against him, allowing Legolas to tilt his head and wring his fingers through his hair, rinsing away the soap and the last remnants of grime.

But then, once his head was removed from the flowing water, Gimli seemed to awaken again; his eyes opened, gleaming with mischief, and Legolas felt the tension in his body change-- indeed, could practically feel the surge of energy through Gimli’s muscles.

“Your turn,” he rumbled, and his hands slid up Legolas’s hips and waist to tighten around his rib cage and raise him up.

Legolas laughed, breathy, and let Gimli move him as he would until he sat on Gimli’s thighs, legs spread to dangle over the sides of Gimli’s own. These he moved himself, hitching them up to wrap around Gimli’s waist, and Gimli gasped at the contact and rocked forward, just once.

“Not now,” he said, his voice tight with restrained need, his fingers digging into Legolas’s sides. “You must be tended first.”

“Then do so,” Legolas teased, letting his own fingers wander up to rest behind Gimli’s neck, working their way into his freshly-washed hair. He swayed slightly against Gimli, pressing himself forward, and was rewarded with a low growl. “Before I lose my patience.”

“You are impossible,” Gimli grumbled, but he moved his hands around Legolas’s back as well, finding the end of his braid and giving it a tug before winding his fingers into Legolas’s hair.

Legolas half-tensed, expecting some pain-- this braid had not been undone since that first night of his return home, his hair untended in all the long days of his illness, matted with sweat and tangled from his thrashing against his pillows. But Gimli’s fingers were infinitely gentle, the touch of the finest craftsman, and they teased at the knots with care, dipping often beneath the surface to use the warm water. Though his hair was tugged, it was never enough to truly hurt, and Legolas felt himself melting with the warmth of the water at his back and Gimli against his front, his head sinking forward to rest against Gimli’s shoulder.

He was tended with unhurried care, all of Gimli’s impatience seemingly dissolved in the long strokes of his fingers and lathering of soap through Legolas’s hair, and Legolas sighed-- as much from the attention as from the relief at feeling clean at last. And when he too was guided beneath the flow of water, he closed his eyes and allowed it, feeling as though he might have slept… had he not been so conscious of Gimli’s presence beside him, of the heat of his skin, a different warmth entirely from the steaming water, of the gentle roughness of his hands.

When Gimli finished with his hair, Legolas sat up, recalling Gimli’s eagerness of before and half-expecting to be pounced, but instead, Gimli’s hands remained in his hair, trailing through it and meeting none of the resistance he had before it was cleaned. Legolas shuddered happily at the sensation, nerves in his scalp and neck awakening with tingles-- and then Gimli looked at him, meeting his gaze with a small smile. His hands followed a new path, but one familiar to both of them: tracing up through Legolas’s hair to brush the edges of his ears.

Legolas’s lashes sank shut and he quivered; if this was his reward, it was worth all the anguish of days past.

Gimli rumbled again with pleasure; the next time he traced the path of his hands with his tongue and Legolas gave a low, quivering cry of welcome, twining his arms around Gimli’s broad body and pulling him closer.

The dwarf’s hand slid between them, capturing their two shafts and drawing them together. Legolas rested his forehead against Gimli’s shoulder, moaning as that hard hand worked them with expert skill-- up and down, calluses dragging at his skin, eased just enough by the softness of the water.

“Your father will not like it if we foul the baths,” Gimli warned.

“Mention him again and I will do worse than that,” Legolas complained, silencing Gimli with a kiss. Gimli tasted sweet and rich, reminiscent of the fruit they had shared-- his mouth hotter than the water they bathed in. Legolas mapped his mouth with the diligence of a great explorer, burying his fingers in the dwarf’s wet hair to hold him still and plundering the riches he found inside. All the while Gimli’s hand worked them together, sending shudders of pleasure up Legolas’s spine, finally forcing him to pull back just to breathe.

That was what Gimli needed to set up an assault on the flesh of Legolas’s throat, his white teeth worrying the flesh in ways that made Legolas whimper and shiver despite the steam in the air. He dug his fingers in, kneading the flesh of Gimli’s powerful shoulders, hitching himself closer to the dwarf’s belly.

Gimli’s hands trailed down his back, one thick finger stroking the cleft, then pausing at its base. Legolas shivered and sank his teeth in his lip. “Do not hesitate,” he pleaded.

Gimli murmured reassurance against his throat, reaching to one side and bringing back a vessel of oil; he raised Legolas to his feet.

“Stand a moment,” Gimli directed, and he uncorked the phial. Legolas tensed, preparing for the touch of oiled fingers behind-- but was taken entirely off-guard when Gimli’s mouth opened and slid over him from before.

He cried out loudly enough to shiver the waters and might have fallen, had Gimli not steadied him with powerful hands upon his hips-- but the dwarf was not thwarted; he hollowed his cheeks and slid all the way down. Legolas’s knees tried to buckle a second time, but again Gimli held him firm, tongue rippling against the base of Legolas’s cock.

He withdrew and slid down again before Legolas regained enough wits to set his trembling palms upon Gimli’s head and steady himself. Then Gimli slicked his hands with oil and slid them around, gently urging him to part his thighs by sliding his feet further apart.

Legolas struggled to stay balanced, overwhelmed by the tight liquid heat of Gimli’s mouth and the wicked work of his tongue as he slid back and forth-- and then by the slow intrusion of one oil-slicked finger, a slight burn that eased into a strange sensation of fullness unlike any he had ever felt before.

“Ai, Gimli!” Legolas braced his hands on Gimli’s shoulders, quivering all over with desperate heat; his head swam and he thought he might succumb to a dizziness that had nothing to do with the steam of the bath.

All the heat in him concentrated in his head, making him sway; his belly fluttered with a liquid tremor that coiled tighter and tighter with every motion of Gimli’s head and his finger-- working deeper inside Legolas until it slid easily, then pressing just so inside.

Legolas wailed, fingertips digging into Gimli’s shoulders, and spent without warning deep inside his love’s mouth. His hips hitched, thrusting involuntarily forward, but Gimli rode it with ease and accepted everything he had to give, then drew back slowly, licking him clean as he went.

“Sit upon me,” Gimli murmured, just a little hoarse, and guided Legolas down over his thighs, then helped him hitch himself closer. Then he tipped Legolas back and pulled him forward-- and pressed in, the heavy muscles of his shoulders flexing, his biceps and arms taut with strain as he eased Legolas gradually onto him.

Legolas realized the babble of nonsense filling the room came from his own lips: half articulated protests and pleas, unrealized oaths and curses, as his body surrendered little by little to the thick shaft of Gimli’s cock.

When at last he was seated, he was covered with sweat where the water did not touch and trembling all over. He clutched Gimli’s head against his shoulder and struggled to breathe, gasping against Gimli’s wet hair, and Gimli soothed him with gentle hands and soft words for a long while before he gently lifted his hips, stirring inside Legolas and re-awakening his flagging desire.

He lifted again, stronger-- Legolas marveled at the strength of him; as an elf he was not heavy, but this angle was awkward. Nevertheless Gimli handled him easily, controlling his rise and fall so gently it was as if he rose upon a cloud.

“Brace your heels upon the seat if you can,” Gimli grunted, and shifted forward enough that Legolas could-- which gave him more control, and let him speed the pace of the slow thrusting as he grew used to Gimli’s thickness inside him.

That pleased Gimli, who gave a low, growling moan, and Legolas smiled; he speeded the pace again, squeezing himself tight about the dwarf’s thick shaft, and Gimli pushed up with such strength he nearly unseated Legolas, sending a ripple of water rushing over the lip of the basin and onto the floor.

Legolas adjusted again and the next time he met Gimli sturdily; they cried out as they came together, and the rhythm abruptly settled between them. Legolas leaned his head back, his hair trailing in the clear water, and cried his passion to the ceiling even as Gimli growled it against his collarbone and sank his teeth at the join of the elf’s throat and neck.

More water sloshed from the basin, but Legolas could not care; he let himself be bucked upward and filled alternately, driving himself down on the thick spear that pierced him and whimpering love and encouragement to Gimli, who thrust up with all his might, the hands on Legolas’s waist bruising him with their rough power-- a sweet sting that made him gasp, his cock filling again in answer to the torrent of sensation.

Gimli shifted his grip, gaining depth, and Legolas heard short, sharp cries issue from his lips as the new angle pushed the dwarf’s thick cock against the perfect place inside; Gimli gritted his teeth and his breath hissed through his nostrils as he struggled against release, plowing upward again and again and again until at last Legolas gave a shrill cry and shuddered, pleasure bursting through him like a lightning strike; then the dwarf roared and dragged him down, holding him so tightly he could not breathe within the circle of those iron-hard arms that held him.

When he came to himself, he had sagged forward and very nearly pushed the dwarf’s head beneath the surface. With sudden concern, he slid his hand beneath Gimli’s chin, lifting him by the locks of his wet red beard. Gimli laughed softly up at him, dark brown eyes gleaming with sated glee.

“That was far better than dreaming,” Gimli murmured. “And I am pleased that the stamina of dwarves is greater than that of elves!”

“Ah, meleth, but it is not,” Legolas laughed, his heart soaring. “As I will soon show!”

“Will you, then?” Gimli snorted. “Not if I show you first!”

“We shall see who may outlast the other,” Legolas said, and nipped at the lobe of Gimli’s ear. The dwarf chuckled, catching him fast, and ducked him below the surface of the waters, then took his time licking the trickling beads away from his throat and chest-- and Legolas let him with great joy, not at all concerned for who would win.

It was some time later before they finally climbed out of the bathing pool, fingers wrinkled from the water, to dry themselves and tiptoe back up the stairs to Legolas’s chambers. The halls were suspiciously empty as they went, but Legolas’s ears caught rustlings and murmurings just out of sight, and he could not help smiling. Let them see-- he cared not.

They curled close again in bed, no longer for any physical need but for the sheer joy and comfort in being near one another. And for the first time since they had parted days ago, Legolas fell into true reverie, his eyes open, his mind wandering-- the better to dream of what was right before him: Gimli’s face slack in sleep, his hands curled into Legolas’s bedcovers, the steady rhythm of his snoring-- the reality better than any dream that Legolas’s mind could conjure.

He came awake gently in the early morning, sliding from reverie to the waking world with little more than a soft sigh, and then smiled irrepressibly at the sight of Gimli still sleeping beside him, nestled snugly into his blankets. “Good morning, _meleth,_ ” he whispered, brushing a kiss over Gimli’s forehead; the dwarf stirred, but did not wake.

Legolas could feel the strength returned to his limbs; he knew that if he wished, he might rise and wander off down the halls; he might run through the forest and climb high in the trees. He might even find Lachwend and offer her the dance that he had lagged in many nights ago. And certainly, part of him wished to-- only two days before, he would have give nearly anything to have the strength to rise and at last free himself from the confines of this bed, of these chambers.

But somehow, he found that at this moment, he desired nothing more than to remain exactly where he was.


End file.
